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University  of  California  •  Berkeley 

From  the  Collection  of 
Joseph  Z.  Todd 

Gift  of 
Hatherly  B.  Todd 


ROBERT  LOUIS  STEVENSON 
Vol.  XIV 

FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF 
MEN  AND  BOOKS  ^  k 
MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2008  with  funding  from 

IVIicrosoft  Corporation 


http://www.archive.org/details/familiarstudiesoOOstevrich 


i 
i 


»THE  TRAVELS  and 
ESSAYS  OF  ROBERT 
LOUIS   STEVENSON 


FAMILIAR    STUDIES    OF 
MEI^'^^'X^e^^^OOKS  %  ft 
MISCEI  LAMEOUS   PAPERS 


SePUBLISHED  IN 
NEW  YORK  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S 
SONS     «     t      1907     * 


*THE  TRAVELS  AND 
ESSAYS  OF  ROBERT 
LOUIS   STEVENSON 


FAMILIAR    STUDIES    OF 
MEN   AND   BOOKS  t  t 
MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 


IfePUBLISHED  IN 
NEW  YORK  BY 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S 
SONS     t     %      1907     $ 


Copyright,  1895,  t>y 
Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


TO 

THOMAS  STEVENSON 

CIVIL   ENGINEER 

BY  WHOSE   DEVICES   THE    GREAT   SEA   LIGHTS    IN   EVERY   QUARTER 
OF   THE   WORLD   NOW   SHINE   MORE    BRIGHTLY 

THIS  VOLUME   IS  IN   LOVE  AND   GRATITUDE 
DEDICATED   BY   HIS  SON 

THE  AUTHOR 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE I 

VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 17 

SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 46 

WALT  WHITMAN 87 

HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU:   HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPIN- 
IONS      116 

YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO .  150 

FRANCOIS     VILLON,    STUDENT,     POET,     AND     HOUSE- 
BREAKER       166 

CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 201 

SAMUEL  PEPYS 243 

JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN    ...  272 

MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

Popular  Authors 329 

Gentlemen 346 

Some  Gentlemen  in  Fiction 361 

The  Pentland  Rising 377 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF 
MEN  AND  BOOKS 


PREFACE 

BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM 

THESE  studies  are  collected  from  the  monthly  press. 
One  appeared  in  -the  New  Quarterly,  one  in  Mac- 
miUan's,  and  the  rest  in  the  Cornhill  Magazine,  To  the 
CornbiU  I  owe  a  double  debt  of  thanks ;  first,  that  I  was 
received  there  in  the  very  best  society,  and  under  the 
eye  of  the  very  best  of  editors;  and  second,  that  the 
proprietors  have  allowed  me  to  republish  so  consider- 
able an  amount  of  copy. 

These  nine  worthies  have  been  brought  together  from 
many  different  ages  and  countries.  Not  the  most  eru- 
dite of  men  could  be  perfectly  prepared  to  deal  with  so 
many  and  such  various  sides  of  human  life  and  manners. 
To  pass  a  true  judgment  upon  Knox  and  Burns  implies 
a  grasp  upon  the  very  deepest  strain  of  thought  in  Scot- 
land, —  a  country  far  more  essentially  different  from 
England  than  many  parts  of  America;  for,  in  a  sense, 
the  first  of  these  men  recreated  Scotland,  and  the  second 
is  its  most  essentially  national  production.  To  treat  fitly 
of  Hugo  and  Villon  would  involve  yet  wider  knowledge, 
not  only  of  a  country  foreign  to  the  author  by  race,  his- 
tory, and  religion,  but  of  the  growth  and  liberties  of  art. 
Of  the  two  Americans,  Whitman  and  Thoreau,  each  is 
the  type  of  something  not  so  much  realised  as  widely 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

sought  after  among  the  late  generations  of  their  country- 
men; and  to  see  them  clearly  in  a  nice  relation  to  the 
society  that  brought  them  forth,  an  author  would  re- 
quire a  large  habit  of  life  among  modern  Americans. 
As  for  Yoshida,  1  have  already  disclaimed  responsibility ; 
it  was  but  my  hand  that  held  the  pen. 

In  truth,  these  are  but  the  readings  of  a  literary  va- 
grant. One  book  led  to  another,  one  study  to  another. 
The  first  was  published  with  trepidation.  Since  no 
bones  were  broken,  the  second  was  launched  with 
greater  confidence.  So,  by  insensible  degrees,  a  young 
man  of  our  generation  acquires,  in  his  own  eyes,  a  kind 
of  roving  judicial  commission  through  the  ages;  and, 
having  once  escaped  the  perils  of  the  Freemans  and  the 
Furnivalls,  sets  himself  up  to  right  the  wrongs  of  uni- 
versal history  and  criticism.  Now,  it  is  one  thing  to 
write  with  enjoyment  on  a  subject  while  the  story  is 
hot  in  your  mind  from  recent  reading,  coloured  with 
recent  prejudice ;  and  it  is  quite  another  business  to  put 
these  writings  coldly  forth  again  in  a  bound  volume. 
We  are  most  of  us  attached  to  our  opinions ;  that  is  one 
of  the  '*  natural  affections  "  of  which  we  hear  so  much  in 
youth ;  but  few  of  us  are  altogether  free  from  paralysing 
doubts  and  scruples.  For  my  part,  I  have  a  small  idea 
of  the  degree  of  accuracy  possible  to  man,  and  I  feel  sure 
these  studies  teem  with  error.  One  and  all  were  writ- 
ten with  genuine  interest  in  the  subject;  many,  how- 
ever, have  been  conceived  and  finished  with  imperfect 
knowledge;  and  all  have  lain,  from  beginning  to  end, 
under  the  disadvantages  inherent  in  this  style  of  writing. 

Of  these  disadvantages  a  word  must  here  be  said. 
The  writer  of  short  studies,  having  to  condense  in  a  few 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM 

pages  the  events  of  a  whole  lifetime,  and  the  effect  on 
his  own  mind  of  many  various  volumes,  is  bound,  above 
all  things,  to  make  that  condensation  logical  and  strik- 
ing. For  the  only  justification  of  his  writing  at  all  is 
that  he  shall  present  a  brief,  reasoned,  and  memorable 
view.  By  the  necessity  of  the  case,  all  the  more  neu- 
tral circumstances  are  omitted  from  his  narrative;  and 
that  of  itself,  by  the  negative  exaggeration  of  which  I  have 
spoken  in  the  text,  lends  to  the  matter  in  hand  a  certain 
false  and  specious  glitter.  By  the  necessity  of  the  case, 
again,  he  is  forced  to  view  his  subject  throughout  in  a 
particular  illumination,  like  a  studio  artifice.  Like  Hales 
with  Pepys,  he  must  nearly  break  his  sitters  neck  to 
get  the  proper  shadows  on  the  portrait  It  is  from  one 
side  only  that  he  has  time  to  represent  his  subject.  The 
side  selected  will  either  be  the  one  most  striking  to  him- 
self, or  the  one  most  obscured  by  controversy ;  and  in 
both  cases  that  will  be  the  one  most  liable  to  strained  and 
sophisticated  reading.  In  a  biography,  this  and  that  is 
displayed;  the  hero  is  seen  at  home,  playing  the  flute; 
the  different  tendencies  of  his  work  come,  one  after 
another,  into  notice;  and  thus  something  like  a  true, 
general  impression  of  the  subject  may  at  last  be  struck. 
But  in  the  short  study,  the  writer,  having  seized  his 
''point  of  view,"  must  keep  his  eye  steadily  to  that. 
He  seeks,  perhaps,  rather  to  differentiate  than  truly  to 
characterise.  The  proportions  of  the  sitter  must  be 
sacrificed  to  the  proportions  of  the  portrait ;  the  lights 
are  heightened,  the  shadows  overcharged ;  the  chosen 
expression,  continually  forced,  may  degenerate  at  length 
into  a  grimace;  and  we  have  at  best  something  of  a 
caricature,  at  worst  a  calumny.      Hence,   if  they  be 

3 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

readable  at  all,  and  hang  together  by  their  own  ends, 
the  peculiar  convincing  force  of  these  brief  representa- 
tions. They  take  so  little  a  while  to  read,  and  yet  in 
that  little  while  the  subject  is  so  repeatedly  introduced 
in  the  same  light  and  with  the  same  expression,  that, 
by  sheer  force  of  repetition,  that  view  is  imposed  upon 
the  reader.  The  two  English  masters  of  the  style, 
Macaulay  and  Carlyle,  largely  exemplify  its  dangers. 
Carlyle,  indeed,  had  so  much  more  depth  and  knowl- 
edge of  the  heart,  his  portraits  of  mankind  are  felt  and 
rendered  with  so  much  more  poetic  comprehension,  and 
he,  like  his  favourite  Ram  Dass,  had  a  fire  in  his  belly 
so  much  more  hotly  burning  than  the  patent  reading 
lamp  by  which  Macaulay  studied,  that  it  seems  at  first 
sight  hardly  fair  to  bracket  them  together.  But  the 
''point  of  view  "  was  imposed  by  Carlyle  on  the  men 
he  judged  of  in  his  writings  with  an  austerity  not  only 
cruel  but  almost  stupid.  They  are  too  often  broken 
outright  on  the  Procrustean  bed;  they  are  probably 
always  disfigured.  The  rhetorical  artifice  of  Macaulay 
is  easily  spied;  it  will  take  longer  to  appreciate  the 
moral  bias  of  Carlyle.  So  with  all  writers  who  insist 
on  forcing  some  significance  from  all  that  comes  before 
them ;  and  the  writer  of  short  studies  is  bound,  by  the 
necessity  of  the  case,  to  write  entirely  in  that  spirit. 
What  he  cannot  vivify  he  should  omit. 

Had  it  been  possible  to  rewrite  some  of  these  papers, 
I  hope  I  should  have  had  the  courage  to  attempt  it. 
But  it  is  not  possible.  Short  studies  are,  or  should  be, 
things  woven  like  a  carpet,  from  which  it  is  impossible 
to  detach  a  strand.  What  is  perverted  has  its  place 
there  forever,  as  a  part  of  the  technical  means  by  which 

4 


PREFACE,  BY  WAY  OF  CRITICISM 

what  is  right  has  been  presented.  It  is  only  possible  to 
write  another  study,  and  then,  with  a  new  "point  of 
view,"  would  follow  new  perversions  and  perhaps  a 
fresh  caricature.  Hence,  it  will  be,  at  least,  honest  to 
offer  a  few  grains  of  salt  to  be  taken  with  the  text;  and 
as  some  words  of  apology,  addition,  correction,  or  am- 
plification fall  to  be  said  on  almost  every  study  in  the 
volume,  it  will  be  most  simple  to  run  them  over  in  their 
order.  But  this  must  not  be  taken  as  a  propitiatory  of- 
fering to  the  gods  of  shipwreck ;  I  trust  my  cargo  unre- 
servedly to  the  chances  of  the  sea;  and  do  not,  by  crit- 
icising myself,  seek  to  disarm  the  wrath  of  other  and 
less  partial  critics. 

Hugo's  Romances. —  This  is  an  instance  of  the  "point 
of  view."  The  five  romances  studied  with  a  different 
purpose  might  have  given  different  results,  even  with  a 
critic  so  warmly  interested  in  their  favour.  The  great 
contemporary  master  of  wordmanship,  and  indeed  of 
all  literary  arts  and  technicalities,  had  not  unnaturally 
dazzled  a  beginner.  But  it  is  best  to  dwell  on  merits, 
for  it  is  these  that  are  most  often  overlooked. 

Burns. —  I  have  left  the  introductory  sentences  on 
Principal  Shairp,  partly  to  explain  my  own  paper,  which 
was  merely  supplemental  to  his  amiable  but  imperfect 
book,  partly  because  that  book  appears  to  me  truly  mis- 
leading both  as  to  the  character  and  the  genius  of  Burns. 
This  seems  ungracious,  but  Mr.  Shairp  has  himself  to 
blame;  so  good  a  Wordsworthian  was  out  of  character 
upon  that  stage. 

This  half  apology  apart,  nothing  more  falls  to  be  said 
except  upon  a  remark  called  forth  by  my  study  in  the 
columns  of  a  literary  Review.     The  exact  terms  in 

5 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

which  that  sheet  disposed  of  Burns  I  cannot  now  recall; 
but  they  were  to  this  effect  —  that  Burns  was  a  bad 
man,  the  impure  vehicle  of  fine  verses;  and  that  this 
was  the  view  to  which  all  criticism  tended.  Now  I 
knew,  for  my  own  part,  that  it  was  with  the  profound- 
est  pity,  but  with  a  growing  esteem,  that  I  studied  the 
man's  desperate  efforts  to  do  right;  and  the  more  1  re- 
flected, the  stranger  it  appeared  to  me  that  any  thinking 
being  should  feel  otherwise.  The  complete  letters  shed, 
indeed,  a  light  on  the  depths  to  which  Burns  had  sunk 
in  his  character  of  Don  Juan,  but  they  enhance  in  the 
same  proportion  the  hopeless  nobility  of  his  marrying 
Jean.  That  I  ought  to  have  stated  this  more  noisily  I 
now  see ;  but  that  any  one  should  fail  to  see  it  for  him- 
self, is  to  me  a  thing  both  incomprehensible  and  worthy 
of  open  scorn.  If  Burns,  on  the  facts  dealt  with  in  this 
study,  is  to  be  called  a  bad  man,  1  question  very  much 
whether  either  I  or  the  writer  in  the  Review  have  ever 
encountered  what  it  would  be  fair  to  call  a  good  one. 
All  have  some  fault.  The  fault  of  each  grinds  down  the 
hearts  of  those  about  him,  and  —  let  us  not  blink  the 
truth  —  hurries  both  him  and  them  into  the  grave.  And 
when  we  find  a  man  persevering  indeed,  in  his  fault,  as 
all  of  us  do,  and  openly  overtaken,  as  not  all  of  us  are, 
by  its  consequences,  to  gloss  the  matter  over,  with  too 
polite  biographers,  is  to  do  the  work  of  the  wrecker  dis- 
figuring beacons  on  a  perilous  seaboard;  but  to  call  him 
bad,  with  a  self-righteous  chuckle,  is  to  be  talking  in 
one's  sleep  with  Heedless  and  Too-bold  in  the  arbour. 

Yet  it  is  undeniable  that  much  anger  and  distress  is 
raised  in  many  quarters  by  the  least  attempt  to  state 
plainly  what  every  one  well  knows  of  Burns's  profli- 

6 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

tells  US  as  much  as  he  thought  necessary  to  account  for 
the  actions  of  his  creatures;  he  thought  that  each  of 
these  actions  could  be  decomposed  on  the  spot  into  a  few 
simple  personal  elements,  as  we  decompose  a  force  in  a 
question  of  abstract  dynamics.  The  larger  motives  are 
all  unknown  to  him ;  he  had  not  understood  that  the 
nature  of  the  landscape  or  the  spirit  of  the  times  could 
be  for  anything  in  a  story ;  and  so,  naturally  and  rightly, 
he  said  nothing  about  them.  But  Scott's  instinct,  the 
instinct  of  the  man  of  an  age  profoundly  different,  taught 
him  otherwise;  and,  in  his  work,  the  individual  char- 
acters begin  to  occupy  a  comparatively  small  proportion 
of  that  canvas  on  which  armies  manoeuvre,  and  great 
hills  pile  themselves  upon  each  other's  shoulders.  Field- 
ing's characters  were  always  great  to  the  full  stature  of 
a  perfectly  arbitrary  will.  Already  in  Scott  we  begin 
to  have  a  sense  of  the  subtle  influences  that  moderate 
and  qualify  a  man's  personality ;  that  personality  is  no 
longer  thrown  out  in  unnatural  isolation,  but  is  resumed 
into  its  place  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

It  is  this  change  in  the  manner  of  regarding  men  and 
their  actions  first  exhibited  in  romance,  that  has  since 
renewed  and  vivified  history.  For  art  precedes  phi- 
losophy and  even  science.  People  must  have  noticed 
things  and  interested  themselves  in  them  before  they 
begin  to  debate  upon  their  causes  or  influence.  And 
it  is  in  this  way  that  art  is  the  pioneer  of  knowledge; 
those  predilections  of  the  artist  he  knows  not  why, 
those  irrational  acceptations  and  recognitions,  reclaim, 
out  of  the  world  that  we  have  not  yet  realised,  ever 
another  and  another  corner;  and  after  the  facts  have 
been  thus  vividly  brought  before  us  and  have  had  time 

23 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

to  settle  and  arrange  themselves  in  our  minds,  some 
day  there  will  be  found  the  man  of  science  to  stand  up 
and  give  the  explanation.  Scott  took  an  interest  in 
many  things  in  which  Fielding  took  none;  and  for  this 
reason,  and  no  other,  he  introduced  them  into  his  ro- 
mances. If  he  had  been  told  what  would  be  the  na- 
ture of  the  movement  that  he  was  so  lightly  initiating, 
he  would  have  been  very  incredulous  and  not  a  little 
scandalised.  At  the  time  when  he  wrote,  the  real  drift 
of  this  new  manner  of  pleasing  people  in  fiction  was  not 
yet  apparent ;  and,  even  now,  it  is  only  by  looking  at  the 
romances  of  Victor  Hugo  that  we  are  enabled  to  form 
any  proper  judgment  in  the  matter.  These  books  are 
not  only  descended  by  ordinary  generation  from  the 
Waverley  novels,  but  it  is  in  them  chiefly  that  we  shall 
find  the  revolutionary  tradition  of  Scott  carried  farther; 
that  we  shall  find  Scott  himself,  in  so  far  as  regards  his 
conception  of  prose  fiction  and  its  purposes,  surpassed 
in  his  own  spirit,  instead  of  tamely  followed.  We  have 
here,  as  1  said  before,  a  line  of  literary  tendency  produced, 
and  by  this  production  definitely  separated  from  others. 
When  we  come  to  Hugo,  we  see  that  the  deviation, 
which  seemed  slight  enough  and  not  very  serious  be- 
tween Scott  and  Fielding,  is  indeed  such  a  great  gulf 
in  thought  and  sentiment  as  only  successive  genera- 
tions can  pass  over:  and  it  is  but  natural  that  one  of 
the  chief  advances  that  Hugo  has  made  upon  Scott  is 
an  advance  in  self-consciousness.  Both  men  follow 
the  same  road;  but  where  the  one  went  blindly  and 
carelessly,  the  other  advances  with  all  deliberation 
and  forethought.  There  never  was  artist  much  more 
unconscious  than  Scott;  and  there  have  been  not  many 

24 


VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES 

more  conscious  than  Hugo.  The  passage  at  the  head 
of  these  pages  shows  how  organically  he  had  under- 
stood the  nature  of  his  own  changes.  He  has,  under- 
lying each  of  the  five  great  romances  (which  alone  I 
purpose  here  to  examine),  two  deliberate  designs :  one 
artistic,  the  other  consciously  ethical  and  intellectual. 
This  is  a  man  living  in  a  different  world  from  Scott, 
who  professes  sturdily  (in  one  of  his  introductions)  that 
he  does  not  believe  in  novels  having  any  moral  influ- 
ence at  all ;  but  still  Hugo  is  too  much  of  an  artist  to  let 
himself  be  hampered  by  his  dogmas ;  and  the  truth  is 
that  the  artistic  result  seems,  in  at  least  one  great  in- 
stance, to  have  very  little  connection  with  the  other,  or 
directly  ethical  result. 

The  artistic  result  of  a  romance,  what  is  left  upon  the 
memory  by  any  really  powerful  and  artistic  novel,  is 
something  so  complicated  and  refined  that  it  is  difficult 
to  put  a  name  upon  it;  and  yet  something  as  simple  as 
nature.  These  two  propositions  may  seem  mutually 
destructive,  but  they  are  so  only  in  appearance.  The 
fact  is  that  art  is  working  far  ahead  of  language  as  well 
as  of  science,  realising  for  us,  by  all  manner  of  sugges- 
tions and  exaggerations,  effects  for  which  as  yet  we  have 
no  direct  name;  nay,  for  which  we  may  never  perhaps 
have  a  direct  name,  for  the  reason  that  these  effects  do 
not  enter  very  largely  into  the  necessities  of  life.  Hence 
alone  is  that  suspicion  of  vagueness  that  often  hangs 
about  the  purpose  of  a  romance:  it  is  clear  enough  to  us 
in  thought;  but  we  are  not  used  to  consider  anything 
clear  until  we  are  able  to  formulate  it  in  words,  and  an- 
alytical language  has  not  been  sufficiently  shaped  to  that 
end.  We  all  know  this  difficulty  in  the  case  of  a  pic- 
as 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ture,  simple  and  strong  as  may  be  the  impression  that  it 
has  left  with  us ;  and  it  is  only  because  language  is  the 
medium  of  romance,  that  we  are  prevented  from  seeing 
that  the  two  cases  are  the  same.  It  is  not  that  there  is 
anything  blurred  or  indefinite  in  the  impression  left 
with  us,  it  is  just  because  the  impression  is  so  very 
definite  after  its  own  kind,  that  we  find  it  hard  to  fit 
it  exactly  with  the  expressions  of  our  philosophical 
speech. 

It  is  this  idea  which  underlies  and  issues  from  a  ro- 
mance, this  something  which  it  is  the  function  of  that 
form  of  art  to  create,  this  epical  value,  that  I  propose 
chiefly  to  seek  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  throw  into  re- 
lief, in  the  present  study.  It  is  thus,  1  believe,  that  we 
shall  see  most  clearly  the  great  stride  that  Hugo  has 
taken  beyond  his  predecessors,  and  how,  no  longer 
content  with  expressing  more  or  less  abstract  relations 
of  man  to  man,  he  has  set  before  himself  the  task  of  re- 
alising, in  the  language  of  romance,  much  of  the  invo- 
lution of  our  complicated  lives. 

This  epical  value  is  not  to  be  found,  let  it  be  under- 
stood, in  every  so-called  novel.  The  great  majority  are 
not  works  of  art  in  anything  but  a  very  secondary  sig- 
nification. One  might  almost  number  on  one's  fingers 
the  works  in  which  such  a  supreme  artistic  intention 
has  been  in  any  way  superior  to  the  other  and  lesser 
aims,  themselves  more  or  less  artistic,  that  generally  go 
hand  in  hand  with  it  in  the  conception  of  prose  ro- 
mance. The  purely  critical  spirit  is,  in  most  novels, 
paramount.  At  the  present  moment  we  can  recall  one 
man  only,  for  whose  works  it  would  have  been  equally 
possible  to  accomplish  our  present  design :  and  that  man 

26 


VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES 

is  Hawthorne.  There  is  a  unity,  an  unwavering  creative 
purpose,  about  some  at  least  of  Hawthorne's  romances, 
that  impresses  itself  on  the  most  indifferent  reader;  and 
the  very  restrictions  and  weaknesses  of  the  man  served 
perhaps  to  strengthen  the  vivid  and  single  impression 
of  his  works.  There  is  nothing  of  this  kind  in  Hugo: 
unity,  if  he  attains  to  it,  is  indeed  unity  out  of  multi- 
tude; and  it  is  the  wonderful  power  of  subordination 
and  synthesis  thus  displayed,  that  gives  us  the  measure 
of  his  talent.  No  amount  of  mere  discussion  and  state- 
ment, such  as  this,  could  give  a  just  conception  of  the 
greatness  of  this  power.  It  must  be  felt  in  the  books 
themselves,  and  all  that  can  be  done  in  the  present  essay 
is  to  recall  to  the  reader  the  more  general  features  of 
each  of  the  five  great  romances,  hurriedly  and  imper- 
fectly, as  space  will  permit,  and  rather  as  a  suggestion 
than  anything  more  complete. 

The  moral  end  that  the  author  had  before  him  in  the 
conception  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  was  (he  tells  us)  to 
*' denounce"  the  external  fatality  that  hangs  over  men 
in  the  form  of  foolish  and  inflexible  superstition.  To 
speak  plainly,  this  moral  purpose  seems  to  have  mighty 
little  to  do  with  the  artistic  conception ;  moreover  it  is 
very  questionably  handled,  while  the  artistic  conception 
is  developed  with  the  most  consummate  success.  Old 
Paris  lives  for  us  with  newness  of  life :  we  have  ever  be- 
fore our  eyes  the  city  cut  into  three  by  the  two  arms  of 
the  river,  the  boat-shaped  island  ** moored"  by  five 
bridges  to  the  different  shores,  and  the  two  unequal 
towns  on  either  hand.  We  forget  all  that  enumeration 
of  palaces  and  churches  and  convents  which  occupies 

ay 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN    AND   BOOKS 

SO  many  pages  of  admirable  description,  and  the 
thoughtless  reader  might  be  inclined  to  conclude  from 
this,  that  they  were  pages  thrown  away;  but  this  is  not 
so :  we  forget,  indeed,  the  details,  as  we  forget  or  do 
not  see  the  different  layers  of  paint  on  a  completed  pic- 
ture; but  the  thing  desired  has  been  accomplished,  and 
we  carry  away  with  us  a  sense  of  the  "  Gothic  profile" 
of  the  city,  of  the  "surprising  forest  of  pinnacles  and 
towers  and  belfries,"  and  we  know  not  what  of  rich  and 
intricate  and  quaint.  And  throughout,  Notre  Dame  has 
been  held  up  over  Paris  by  a  height  far  greater  than  that 
of  its  twin  towers :  the  Cathedral  is  present  to  us  from 
the  first  page  to  the  last;  the  title  has  given  us  the  clew, 
and  already  in  the  Palace  of  Justice  the  story  begins  to 
attach  itself  to  that  central  building  by  character  after 
character.  It  is  purely  an  effect  of  mirage ;  Notre  Dame 
does  not,  in  reality,  thus  dominate  and  stand  out  above 
the  city  ;  and  any  one  who  should  visit  it,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Scott-tourists  to  Edinburgh  or  the  Tros- 
sachs,  would  be  almost  offended  at  finding  nothing  more 
than  this  old  church  thrust  away  into  a  corner.  It  is 
purely  an  effect  of  mirage,  as  we  say ;  but  it  is  an  effect 
that  permeates  and  possesses  the  whole  book  with  as- 
tonishing consistency  and  strength.  And  then,  Hugo 
has  peopled  this  Gothic  city,  and,  above  all,  this  Gothic 
church,  with  a  race  of  men  even  more  distinctly  Gothic 
than  their  surroundings.  We  know  this  generation 
already :  we  have  seen  them  clustered  about  the  worn 
capitals  of  pillars,  or  craning  forth  over  the  church-leads 
with  the  open  mouths  of  gargoyles.  About  them  all 
there  is  that  sort  of  stiff"  quaint  unreality,  that  conjunc- 
tion of  the  grotesque,  and  even  of  a  certain  bourgeois 

28 


VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES 

snugness,  with  passionate  contortion  and  horror,  that  is 
so  characteristic  of  Gothic  art.  Esmeralda  is  somewhat 
an  exception ;  she  and  the  goat  traverse  the  story  like 
two  children  who  have  wandered  in  a  dream.  The 
finest  moment  of  the  book  is  when  these  two  share 
with  the  two  other  leading  characters,  Dom  Claude  and 
Quasimodo,  the  chill  shelter  of  the  old  cathedral.  It  is 
here  that  we  touch  most  intimately  the  generative  ar- 
tistic idea  of  the  romance :  are  they  not  all  four  taken 
out  of  some  quaint  moulding,  illustrative  of  the  Beati- 
tudes, or  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  the  seven  deadly 
sins  ?  What  is  Quasimodo  but  an  animated  gargoyle  > 
What  is  the  whole  book  but  the  reanimation  of  Gothic 
art? 

It  is  curious  that  in  this,  the  earliest  of  the  five  great 
romances,  there  should  be  so  little  of  that  extravagance 
that  latterly  we  have  come  almost  to  identify  with  the 
author's  manner.  Yet  even  here  we  are  distressed  by 
words,  thoughts,  and  incidents  that  defy  belief  and 
alienate  the  sympathies.  The  scene  of  the  w /)^^^^  for 
example,  in  spite  of  its  strength,  verges  dangerously  on 
the  province  of  the  penny  novelist.  I  do  not  believe 
that  Quasimodo  rode  upon  the  bell;  I  should  as  soon 
imagine  that  he  swung  by  the  clapper.  And  again  the 
following  two  sentences,  out  of  an  otherwise  admirable 
chapter,  surely  surpass  what  it  has  ever  entered  into  the 
heart  of  any  other  man  to  imagine  (vol.  ii.  p.  i8o)  :  ''  II 
souflfrait  tant  que  par  instants  il  s'arrachait  des  poignees 
de  cheveux,  pour  voir  s  'Us  ne  blanchissaient pas. ' '  And, 
p.  i8i  :  **Ses  pensees  etaient  si  insupportables  qu'il 
prenait  sa  tete  a  deux  mains  et  tachait  de  I'arracher  de 
ses  epaules  pour  la  briser  sur  le  pavi. 

29 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

One  other  fault,  before  we  pass  on.  In  spite  of  the 
horror  and  misery  that  pervade  all  of  his  later  work, 
there  is  in  it  much  less  of  actual  melodrama  than  here, 
and  rarely,  I  should  say  never,  that  sort  of  brutality, 
that  useless  insufferable  violence  to  the  feelings,  which 
is  the  last  distinction  between  melodrama  and  true 
tragedy.  Now,  in  Notre  Dame,  the  whole  story  of  Es- 
meralda's passion  for  the  worthless  archer  is  unpleasant 
enough ;  but  when  she  betrays  herself  in  her  last  hiding- 
place,  herself  and  her  wretched  mother,  by  calling  out 
to  this  sordid  hero  who  has  long  since  forgotten  her — 
well,  that  is  just  one  of  those  things  that  readers  will 
not  forgive;  they  do  not  like  it,  and  they  are  quite  right; 
life  is  hard  enough  for  poor  mortals,  without  having  it 
indefinitely  embittered  for  them  by  bad  art. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  similar  blemish  in  Les  Mis^- 
rabies.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  perhaps  the 
nearest  approach  to  literary  restraint  that  Hugo  has  ever 
made:  there  is  here  certainly  the  ripest  and  most  easy 
development  of  his  powers.  It  is  the  moral  intention 
of  this  great  novel  to  awaken  us  a  little,  if  it  may  be — 
for  such  awakenings  are  unpleasant — to  the  great  cost 
of  this  society  that  we  enjoy  and  profit  by,  to  the  labour 
and  sweat  of  those  who  support  the  litter,  civilisation, 
in  which  we  ourselves  are  so  smoothly  carried  forward. 
People  are  all  glad  to  shut  their  eyes;  and  it  gives  them 
a  very  simple  pleasure  when  they  can  forget  that  our 
laws  commit  a  million  individual  injustices,  to  be  once 
roughly  just  in  the  general;  that  the  bread  that  we  eat, 
and  the  quiet  of  the  family,  and  all  that  embellishes  life 
and  makes  it  worth  having,  have  to  be  purchased  by 

30 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

death — by  the  deaths  of  animals,  and  the  deaths  of  men 
wearied  out  with  labour,  and  the  deaths  of  those  crimi- 
nals called  tyrants  and  revolutionaries,  and  the  deaths 
of  those  revolutionaries  called  criminals.  It  is  to  some- 
thing of  all  this  that  Victor  Hugo  wishes  to  open  men's 
eyes  in  Les  Miserables;  and  this  moral  lesson  is  worked 
out  in  masterly  coincidence  with  the  artistic  effect.  The 
deadly  weight  of  civilisation  to  those  who  are  below 
presses  sensibly  on  our  shoulders  as  we  read.  A  sort 
of  mocking  indignation  grows  upon  us  as  we  find  So- 
ciety rejecting,  again  and  again,  the  services  of  the  most 
serviceable;  setting  Jean  Valjean  to  pick  oakum,  casting 
Galileo  into  prison,  even  crucifying  Christ.  There  is 
a  haunting  and  horrible  sense  of  insecurity  about  the 
book.  The  terror  we  thus  feel  is  a  terror  for  the  ma- 
chinery of  law,  that  we  can  hear  tearing,  in  the  dark, 
good  and  bad  between  its  formidable  wheels  with  the 
iron  stolidity  of  all  machinery,  human  or  divine.  This 
terror  incarnates  itself  sometimes  and  leaps  horribly  out 
upon  us;  as  when  the  crouching  mendicant  looks  up, 
and  Jean  Valjean,  in  the  light  of  the  street  lamp,  recog- 
nises the  face  of  the  detective ;  as  when  the  lantern  of 
the  patrol  flashes  suddenly  through  the  darkness  of  the 
sewer;  or  as  when  the  fugitive  comes  forth  at  last  at 
evening,  by  the  quiet  riverside,  and  finds  the  police 
there  also,  waiting  stolidly  for  vice  and  stolidly  satisfied 
to  take  virtue  instead.  The  whole  book  is  full  of  op- 
pression, and  full  of  prejudice,  which  is  the  great  cause 
of  oppression.  We  have  the  prejudices  of  M.  Gillenor- 
mand,  the  prejudices  of  Marius,  the  prejudices  in  revolt 
that  defend  the  barricade,  and  the  throned  prejudices 
that  carry  it  by  storm.     And  then  we  have  the  admi- 

3» 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

rable  but  ill-written  character  of  Javert,  the  man  who 
had  made  a  religion  of  the  police,  and  would  not  sur- 
vive the  moment  when  he  learned  that  there  was  an- 
other truth  outside  the  truth  of  laws;  a  just  creation, 
over  which  the  reader  will  do  well  to  ponder. 

With  so  gloomy  a  design  this  great  work  is  still  full 
of  life  and  light  and  love.  The  portrait  of  the  good 
Bishop  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  things  in  modern 
literature.  The  whole  scene  at  Montfermeil  is  full  of  the 
charm  that  Hugo  knows  so  well  how  to  throw  about 
children.  Who  can  forget  the  passage  where  Cosette, 
sent  out  at  night  to  draw  water,  stands  in  admiration 
before  the  illuminated  booth,  and  the  huckster  behind 
**  lui  faisait  un  peu  reffet  d'etre  le  Pere  eternel  ?  "  The 
pathos  of  the  forlorn  sabot  laid  trustingly  by  the  chimney 
in  expectation  of  the  Santa  Claus  that  was  not,  takes  us 
fairly  by  the  throat;  there  is  nothing  in  Shakespeare  that 
touches  the  heart  more  nearly.  The  loves  of  Cosette  and 
Marius  are  very  pure  and  pleasant,  and  we  cannot  refuse 
our  affection  to  Gavroche,  although  we  may  make  a 
mental  reservation  of  our  profound  disbelief  in  his  ex- 
istence. Take  it  for  all  in  all,  there  are  few  books  in  the 
world  that  can  be  compared  with  it.  There  is  as  much 
calm  and  serenity  as  Hugo  has  ever  attained  to;  the 
melodramatic  coarsenesses  that  disfigured  Notre  Dame 
are  no  longer  present.  There  is  certainly  much  that  is 
painfully  improbable;  and  again,  the  story  itself  is  a  little 
too  well  constructed;  it  produces  on  us  the  effect  of  a 
puzzle,  and  we  grow  incredulous  as  we  find  that  every 
character  fits  again  and  again  into  the  plot,  and  is,  like 
the  child's  cube,  serviceable  on  six  faces ;  things  are  not 
so  well  arranged  in  life  as  all  that  comes  to.     Some  of 

33 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

the  digressions,  also,  seem  out  of  place,  and  do  nothing 
but  interrupt  and  irritate.  But  when  all  is  said,  the  book 
remains  of  masterly  conception  and  of  masterly  develop- 
ment, full  of  pathos,  full  of  truth,  full  of  a  high  elo- 
quence. 

Superstition  and  social  exigency  having  been  thus 
dealt  with  in  the  first  two  members  of  the  series,  it  re- 
mained for  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer  to  show  man 
hand  to  hand  with  the  elements,  the  last  form  of  ex- 
ternal force  that  is  brought  against  him.  And  here  once 
more  the  artistic  effect  and  the  moral  lesson  are  worked 
out  together,  and  are,  indeed,  one.  Gilliat,  alone  upon 
the  reef  at  his  herculean  task,  offers  a  type  of  human  in- 
dustry in  the  midst  of  the  vague  ' '  diffusion  of  forces 
into  the  illimitable,"  and  the  visionary  development  of 
** wasted  labour"  in  the  sea,  and  the  winds,  and  the 
clouds.  No  character  was  ever  thrown  into  such  strange 
relief  as  Gilliat.  The  great  circle  of  sea-birds  that  come 
wonderingly  around  him  on  the  night  of  his  arrival, 
strikes  at  once  the  note  of  his  pre-eminence  and  isola- 
tion. He  fills  the  whole  reef  with  his  indefatigable  toil; 
this  solitary  spot  in  the  ocean  rings  with  the  clamour  of 
his  anvil ;  we  see  him  as  he  comes  and  goes,  thrown  out 
sharply  against  the  clear  background  of  the  sea.  And 
yet  his  isolation  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  isolation 
of  Robinson  Crusoe,  for  example;  indeed,  no  two  books 
could  be  more  instructive  to  set  side  by  side  than  Les 
Travailleurs  and  this  other  of  the  old  days  before  art 
had  learned  to  occupy  itself  with  what  lies  outside  of 
human  will.  Crusoe  was  one  sole  centre  of  interest  in 
the  midst  of  a  nature  utterly  dead  and  utterly  unrealised 

33 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

by  the  artist;  but  this  is  not  how  we  feel  with  Gilliat; 
we  feel  that  he  is  opposed  by  a  ''dark  coalition  of 
forces,"  that  an  "  immense  animosity  "  surrounds  him; 
we  are  the  witnesses  of  the  terrible  warfare  that  he 
wages  with  "the  silent  inclemency  of  phenomena  go- 
ing their  own  way,  and  the  great  general  law,  implaca- 
ble and  passive:"  '*a  conspiracy  of  the  indifferency  of 
things  "  is  against  him.  There  is  not  one  interest  on 
the  reef,  but  two.  Just  as  we  recognise  Gilliat  for  the 
hero,  we  recognise,  as  implied  by  this  indifferency  of 
things,  this  direction  of  forces  to  some  purpose  outside 
our  purposes,  yet  another  character  who  may  almost 
take  rank  as  the  villain  of  the  novel,  and  the  two  face  up 
to  one  another  blow  for  blow,  feint  for  feint,  until,  in  the 
storm,  they  fight  it  epically  out,  and  Gilliat  remains  the 
victor;  —  a  victor,  however,  who  has  still  to  encoun- 
ter the  octopus.  I  need  say  nothing  of  the  grewsome, 
repulsive  excellence  of  that  famous  scene;  it  will  be 
enough  to  remind  the  reader  that  Gilliat  is  in  pursuit  of 
a  crab  when  he  is  himself  assaulted  by  the  devil  fish, 
and  that  this,  in  its  way,  is  the  last  touch  to  the  inner 
significance  of  the  book ;  here,  indeed,  is  the  true  posi- 
tion of  man  in  the  universe. 

But  in  Les  Travailleurs,  with  all  its  strength,  with 
all  its  eloquence,  with  all  the  beauty  and  fitness  of 
its  main  situations,  we  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves 
that  there  is  a  thread  of  something  that  will  not 
bear  calm  scrutiny.  There  is  much  that  is  disquiet- 
ing about  the  storm,  admirably  as  it  begins.  I  am 
very  doubtful  whether  it  would  be  possible  to  keep  the 
boat  from  foundering  in  such  circumstances,  by  any 
amount  of  breakwater  and  broken  rock.     I  do  not  un- 

34 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

derstand  the  way  in  which  the  waves  are  spoken  of,  and 
prefer  just  to  take  it  as  a  loose  way  of  speaking,  and 
pass  on.  And  lastly,  how  does  it  happen  that  the  sea 
was  quite  calm  next  day  ?  Is  this  great  hurricane  a  piece 
of  scene-painting  after  all  ?  And  when  we  have  for- 
given Gilliat's  prodigies  of  strength  (although,  in  sober- 
ness, he  reminds  us  more  of  Porthos  in  the  Vicomte  de 
Bragelonne  than  is  quite  desirable),  what  is  to  be  said  to 
his  suicide,  and  how  are  we  to  condemn  in  adequate 
terms  that  unprincipled  avidity  after  effect,  which  tells 
us  that  the  sloop  disappeared  over  the  horizon,  and  the 
head  under  the  water,  at  one  and  the  same  moment  ? 
Monsieur  Hugo  may  say  what  he  will,  but  we  know 
better;  we  know  very  well  that  they  did  not;  a  thing 
like  that  raises  up  a  despairing  spirit  of  opposition  in  a 
man's  readers;  they  give  him  the  lie  fiercely,  as  they 
read.  Lastly,  we  have  here  already  some  beginning  of 
that  curious  series  of  English  blunders,  that  makes  us 
wonder  if  there  are  neither  proof  sheets  nor  judicious 
friends  in  the  whole  of  France,  and  affects  us  sometimes 
with  a  sickening  uneasiness  as  to  what  may  be  our  own 
exploits  when  we  touch  upon  foreign  countries  and  for- 
eign tongues.  It  is  here  that  we  shall  find  the  famous 
"first  of  the  fourth,"  and  many  English  words  that  may 
be  comprehensible  perhaps  in  Paris.  It  is  here  that  we 
learn  that  *' laird"  in  Scotland  is  the  same  title  as 
"lord'^  in  England.  Here,  also,  is  an  account  of  a 
Highland  soldier's  equipment,  which  we  recommend  to 
the  lovers  of  genuine  fun. 

In  L' Homme  qui  Rit,  it  was  Hugo's  object  to  ''de- 
nounce "  (as  he  would  say  himself)  the  aristocratic 

^5 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

principle  as  it  was  exhibited  in  England ;  and  this  pur- 
pose, somewhat  more  unmitigatedly  satiric  than  that  of 
the  two  last,  must  answer  for  much  that  is  unpleasant  in 
the  book.  The  repulsiveness  of  the  scheme  of  the  story, 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  bound  up  with  impossi- 
bilities and  absurdities,  discourage  the  reader  at  the  out- 
set, and  it  needs  an  effort  to  take  it  as  seriously  as  it 
deserves.  And  yet  when  we  judge  it  deliberately,  it 
will  be  seen  that,  here  again,  the  story  is  admirably 
adapted  to  the  moral.  The  constructive  ingenuity  ex- 
hibited throughout  is  almost  morbid.  Nothing  could 
be  more  happily  imagined,  as  a  reductio  ad  absurdum 
of  the  aristocratic  principle,  than  the  adventures  of 
Gwynplaine,  the  itinerant  mountebank,  snatched  sud- 
denly out  of  his  little  way  of  life,  and  installed  without 
preparation  as  one  of  the  hereditary  legislators  of  a  great 
country.  It  is  with  a  very  bitter  irony  that  the  paper, 
on  which  all  this  depends,  is  left  to  float  for  years  at 
the  will  of  wind  and  tide.  What,  again,  can  be  finer 
in  conception  than  that  voice  from  the  people  heard  sud- 
denly in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  solemn  arraignment  of 
the  pleasures  and  privileges  of  its  splendid  occupants  ? 
The  horrible  laughter,  stamped  forever  *'by  order  of  the 
king  "  upon  the  face  of  this  strange  spokesman  of  de- 
mocracy, adds  yet  another  feature  of  justice  to  the  scene; 
in  all  time,  travesty  has  been  the  argument  of  oppres- 
sion; and,  in  all  time,  the  oppressed  might  have  made 
this  answer:  "If  I  am  vile,  is  it  not  your  system  that 
has  made  me  so  ?  "  This  ghastly  laughter  gives  occa- 
sion, moreover,  for  the  one  strain  of  tenderness  running 
through  the  web  of  this  unpleasant  story :  the  love  of 
the  blind  girl  Dea  for  the  monster.     It  is  a  most  be- 

36 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

nignant  providence  that  thus  harmoniously  brings 
together  these  two  misfortunes ;  it  is  one  of  those  com- 
pensations, one  of  those  afterthoughts  of  a  relenting 
destiny,  that  reconcile  us  from  time  to  time  to  the  evil 
that  is  in  the  world;  the  atmosphere  of  the  book  is 
purified  by  the  presence  of  this  pathetic  love;  it  seems 
to  be  above  the  story  somehow,  and  not  of  it,  as  the  full 
moon  over  the  night  of  some  foul  and  feverish  city. 

There  is  here  a  quality  in  the  narration  more  intimate 
and  particular  than  is  general  with  Hugo ;  but  it  must 
be  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  book  is  wordy, 
and  even,  now  and  then,  a  little  wearisome.  Ursus  and 
his  wolf  are  pleasant  enough  companions ;  but  the  for- 
mer is  nearly  as  much  an  abstract  type  as  the  latter. 
There  is  a  beginning,  also,  of  an  abuse  of  conventional 
conversation,  such  as  may  be  quite  pardonable  in  the 
drama  where  needs  must,  but  is  without  excuse  in  the 
romance.  Lastly,  I  suppose  one  must  say  a  word  or 
two  about  the  weak  points  of  this  not  immaculate 
novel ;  and  if  so,  it  will  be  best  to  distinguish  at  once. 
The  large  family  of  English  blunders,  to  which  we  have 
alluded  already  in  speaking  of  Les  Travailleurs,  are  of 
a  sort  that  is  really  indifferent  in  art.  If  Shakespeare 
makes  his  ships  cast  anchor  by  some  seaport  of  Bohe- 
mia, if  Hugo  imagines  Tom-Tim-Jack  to  be  a  likely 
nickname  for  an  English  sailor,  or  if  either  Shakespeare, 
or  Hugo,  or  Scott,  for  that  matter,  be  guilty  of  "fig- 
ments enough  to  confuse  the  march  of  a  whole  history 
—  anachronisms  enough  to  overset  all  chronology,"  ^ 
the  life  of  their  creations,  the  artistic  truth  and  accuracy 
of  their  work,  is  not  so  much  as  compromised.     But 

1  Prefatory  letter  to  Peveril  of  the  Peak. 
37 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

when  we  come  upon  a  passage  like  the  sinking  of  the 
**Ourque"  in  this  romance,  we  can  do  nothing  but 
cover  our  face  with  our  hands :  the  conscientious  reader 
feels  a  sort  of  disgrace  in  the  very  reading.  For  such 
ahistic  falsehoods,  springing  from  what  I  have  called 
already  an  unprincipled  avidity  after  effect,  no  amount 
of  blame  can  be  exaggerated ;  and  above  all,  when  the 
criminal  is  such  a  man  as  Victor  Hugo.  We  cannot  for- 
give in  him  what  we  might  have  passed  over  in  a  third- 
rate  sensation  novelist.  Little  as  he  seems  to  know  of 
the  sea  and  nautical  affairs,  he  must  have  known  very 
well  that  vessels  do  not  go  down  as  he  makes  the 
**  Ourque  "  go  down ;  he  must  have  known  that  such  a 
liberty  with  fact  was  against  the  laws  of  the  game,  and 
incompatible  with  all  appearance  of  sincerity  in  concep- 
tion or  workmanship. 

In  each  of  these  books,  one  after  another,  there  has 
been  some  departure  from  the  traditional  canons  of  ro- 
mance; but  taking  each  separately,  one  would  have 
feared  to  make  too  much  of  these  departures,  or  to  found 
any  theory  upon  what  was  perhaps  purely  accidental. 
The  appearance  of  Quatre  Vingt  Trei^e  has  put  us  out 
of  the  region  of  such  doubt.  Like  a  doctor  who  has 
long  been  hesitating  how  to  classify  an  epidemic  mal- 
ady, we  have  come  at  last  upon  a  case  so  well  marked 
that  our  uncertainty  is  at  an  end.  It  is  a  novel  built 
upon  **a  sort  of  enigma,"  which  was  at  that  date  laid 
before  revolutionary  France,  and  which  is  presented  by 
Hugo  to  Tellmarch,  to  Lantenac,  to  Gauvain,  and  very 
terribly  to  Cimourdain,  each  of  whom  gives  his  own  so- 
lution of  the  question,  clement  or  stern,  according  to  the 

38 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

tells  US  as  much  as  he  thought  necessary  to  account  for 
the  actions  of  his  creatures;  he  thought  that  each  of 
these  actions  could  be  decomposed  on  the  spot  into  a  few 
simple  personal  elements,  as  we  decompose  a  force  in  a 
question  of  abstract  dynamics.  The  larger  motives  are 
all  unknown  to  him ;  he  had  not  understood  that  the 
nature  of  the  landscape  or  the  spirit  of  the  times  could 
be  for  anything  in  a  story ;  and  so,  naturally  and  rightly, 
he  said  nothing  about  them.  But  Scott's  instinct,  the 
instinct  of  the  man  of  an  age  profoundly  different,  taught 
him  otherwise;  and,  in  his  work,  the  individual  char- 
acters begin  to  occupy  a  comparatively  small  proportion 
of  that  canvas  on  which  armies  manoeuvre,  and  great 
hills  pile  themselves  upon  each  other's  shoulders.  Field- 
ing's characters  were  always  great  to  the  full  stature  of 
a  perfectly  arbitrary  will.  Already  in  Scott  we  begin 
to  have  a  sense  of  the  subtle  influences  that  moderate 
and  qualify  a  man's  personality ;  that  personality  is  no 
longer  thrown  out  in  unnatural  isolation,  but  is  resumed 
into  its  place  in  the  constitution  of  things. 

It  is  this  change  in  the  manner  of  regarding  men  and 
their  actions  first  exhibited  in  romance,  that  has  since 
renewed  and  vivified  history.  For  art  precedes  phi- 
losophy and  even  science.  People  must  have  noticed 
things  and  interested  themselves  in  them  before  they 
begin  to  debate  upon  their  causes  or  influence.  And 
it  is  in  this  way  that  art  is  the  pioneer  of  knowledge ; 
those  predilections  of  the  artist  he  knows  not  why, 
those  irrational  acceptations  and  recognitions,  reclaim, 
out  of  the  world  that  we  have  not  yet  realised,  ever 
another  and  another  corner;  and  after  the  facts  have 
been  thus  vividly  brought  before  us  and  have  had  time 

23 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

to  settle  and  arrange  themselves  in  our  minds,  some 
day  there  will  be  found  the  man  of  science  to  stand  up 
and  give  the  explanation.  Scott  took  an  interest  in 
many  things  in  which  Fielding  took  none;  and  for  this 
reason,  and  no  other,  he  introduced  them  into  his  ro- 
mances. If  he  had  been  told  what  would  be  the  na- 
ture of  the  movement  that  he  was  so  lightly  initiating, 
he  would  have  been  very  incredulous  and  not  a  little 
scandalised.  At  the  time  when  he  wrote,  the  real  drift 
of  this  new  manner  of  pleasing  people  in  fiction  was  not 
yet  apparent;  and,  even  now,  it  is  only  by  looking  at  the 
romances  of  Victor  Hugo  that  we  are  enabled  to  form 
any  proper  judgment  in  the  matter.  These  books  are 
not  only  descended  by  ordinary  generation  from  the 
Waverley  novels,  but  it  is  in  them  chiefly  that  we  shall 
find  the  revolutionary  tradition  of  Scott  carried  farther; 
that  we  shall  find  Scott  himself,  in  so  far  as  regards  his 
conception  of  prose  fiction  and  its  purposes,  surpassed 
in  his  own  spirit,  instead  of  tamely  followed.  We  have 
here,  as  I  said  before,  a  line  of  literary  tendency  produced, 
and  by  this  production  definitely  separated  from  others. 
When  we  come  to  Hugo,  we  see  that  the  deviation, 
which  seemed  slight  enough  and  not  very  serious  be- 
tween Scott  and  Fielding,  is  indeed  such  a  great  gulf 
in  thought  and  sentiment  as  only  successive  genera- 
tions can  pass  over:  and  it  is  but  natural  that  one  of 
the  chief  advances  that  Hugo  has  made  upon  Scott  is 
an  advance  in  self-consciousness.  Both  men  follow 
the  same  road;  but  where  the  one  went  blindly  and 
carelessly,  the  other  advances  with  all  deliberation 
and  forethought.  There  never  was  artist  much  more 
unconscious  than  Scott ;  and  there  have  been  not  many 

24 


VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES 

more  conscious  than  Hugo.  The  passage  at  the  head 
of  these  pages  shows  how  organically  he  had  under- 
stood the  nature  of  his  own  changes.  He  has,  under- 
lying each  of  the  five  great  romances  (which  alone  I 
purpose  here  to  examine),  two  deliberate  designs :  one 
artistic,  the  other  consciously  ethical  and  intellectual. 
This  is  a  man  living  in  a  different  world  from  Scott, 
who  professes  sturdily  (in  one  of  his  introductions)  that 
he  does  not  believe  in  novels  having  any  moral  influ- 
enc^e  at  all;  but  still  Hugo  is  too  much  of  an  artist  to  let 
himself  be  hampered  by  his  dogmas ;  and  the  truth  is 
that  the  artistic  result  seems,  in  at  least  one  great  in- 
stance, to  have  very  little  connection  with  the  other,  or 
directly  ethical  result. 

The  artistic  result  of  a  romance,  what  is  left  upon  the 
memory  by  any  really  powerful  and  artistic  novel,  is 
something  so  complicated  and  refined  that  it  is  difficult 
to  put  a  name  upon  it;  and  yet  something  as  simple  as 
nature.  These  two  propositions  may  seem  mutually 
destructive,  but  they  are  so  only  in  appearance.  The 
fact  is  that  art  is  working  far  ahead  of  language  as  well 
as  of  science,  realising  for  us,  by  all  manner  of  sugges- 
tions and  exaggerations,  effects  for  which  as  yet  we  have 
no  direct  name ;  nay,  for  which  we  may  never  perhaps 
have  a  direct  name,  for  the  reason  that  these  effects  do 
not  enter  very  largely  into  the  necessities  of  life.  Hence 
alone  is  that  suspicion  of  vagueness  that  often  hangs 
about  the  purpose  of  a  romance:  it  is  clear  enough  to  us 
in  thought;  but  we  are  not  used  to  consider  anything 
clear  until  we  are  able  to  formulate  it  in  words,  and  an- 
alytical language  has  not  been  sufficiently  shaped  to  that 
end.     We  all  know  this  difficulty  in  the  case  of  a  pic- 

25 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ture,  simple  and  strong  as  may  be  the  impression  that  it 
has  left  with  us ;  and  it  is  only  because  language  is  the 
medium  of  romance,  that  we  are  prevented  from  seeing 
that  the  two  cases  are  the  same.  It  is  not  that  there  is 
anything  blurred  or  indefinite  in  the  impression  left 
with  us,  it  is  just  because  the  impression  is  so  very 
definite  after  its  own  kind,  that  we  find  it  hard  to  fit 
it  exactly  with  the  expressions  of  our  philosophical 
speech. 

It  is  this  idea  which  underlies  and  issues  from  a  ro- 
mance, this  something  which  it  is  the  function  of  that 
form  of  art  to  create,  this  epical  value,  that  I  propose 
chiefly  to  seek  and,  as  far  as  may  be,  to  throw  into  re- 
lief, in  the  present  study.  It  is  thus,  I  believe,  that  we 
shall  see  most  clearly  the  great  stride  that  Hugo  has 
taken  beyond  his  predecessors,  and  how,  no  longer 
content  with  expressing  more  or  less  abstract  relations 
of  man  to  man,  he  has  set  before  himself  the  task  of  re- 
alising, in  the  language  of  romance,  much  of  the  invo- 
lution of  our  complicated  lives. 

This  epical  value  is  not  to  be  found,  let  it  be  under- 
stood, in  every  so-called  novel.  The  great  majority  are 
not  works  of  art  in  anything  but  a  very  secondary  sig- 
nification. One  might  almost  number  on  one's  fingers 
the  works  in  which  such  a  supreme  artistic  intention 
has  been  in  any  way  superior  to  the  other  and  lesser 
aims,  themselves  more  or  less  artistic,  that  generally  go 
hand  in  hand  with  it  in  the  conception  of  prose  ro- 
mance. The  purely  critical  spirit  is,  in  most  novels, 
paramount.  At  the  present  moment  we  can  recall  one 
man  only,  for  whose  works  it  would  have  been  equally 
possible  to  accomplish  our  present  design :  and  that  man 

36 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

is  Hawthorne.  There  is  a  unity,  an  unwavering  creative 
purpose,  about  some  at  least  of  Hawthorne's  romances, 
that  impresses  itself  on  the  most  indifferent  reader;  and 
the  very  restrictions  and  weaknesses  of  the  man  served 
perhaps  to  strengthen  the  vivid  and  single  impression 
of  his  works.  There  is  nothing  of  this  kind  in  Hugo: 
unity,  if  he  attains  to  it,  is  indeed  unity  out  of  multi- 
tude; and  it  is  the  wonderful  power  of  subordination 
and  synthesis  thus  displayed,  that  gives  us  the  measure 
of  his  talent.  No  amount  of  mere  discussion  and  state- 
ment, such  as  this,  could  give  a  just  conception  of  the 
greatness  of  this  power.  It  must  be  felt  in  the  books 
themselves,  and  all  that  can  be  done  in  the  present  essay 
is  to  recall  to  the  reader  the  more  general  features  of 
each  of  the  five  great  romances,  hurriedly  and  imper- 
fectly, as  space  will  permit,  and  rather  as  a  suggestion 
than  anything  more  complete. 

The  moral  end  that  the  author  had  before  him  in  the 
conception  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  was  (he  tells  us)  to 
*' denounce"  the  external  fatality  that  hangs  over  men 
in  the  form  of  foolish  and  inflexible  superstition.  To 
speak  plainly,  this  moral  purpose  seems  to  have  mighty 
little  to  do  with  the  artistic  conception ;  moreover  it  is 
very  questionably  handled,  while  the  artistic  conception 
is  developed  with  the  most  consummate  success.  Old 
Paris  lives  for  us  with  newness  of  life :  we  have  ever  be- 
fore our  eyes  the  city  cut  into  three  by  the  two  arms  of 
the  river,  the  boat-shaped  island  *' moored'*  by  five 
bridges  to  the  different  shores,  and  the  two  unequal 
towns  on  either  hand.  We  forget  all  that  enumeration 
of  palaces  and  churches  and  convents  which  occupies 

27 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN    AND   BOOKS 

SO  many  pages  of  admirable  description,  and  the 
thoughtless  reader  might  be  inclined  to  conclude  from 
this,  that  they  were  pages  thrown  away ;  but  this  is  not 
so :  we  forget,  indeed,  the  details,  as  we  forget  or  do 
not  see  the  different  layers  of  paint  on  a  completed  pic- 
ture; but  the  thing  desired  has  been  accomplished,  and 
we  carry  away  with  us  a  sense  of  the  "  Gothic  profile" 
of  the  city,  of  the  "surprising  forest  of  pinnacles  and 
towers  and  belfries,"  and  we  know  not  what  of  rich  and 
intricate  and  quaint.  And  throughout,  Notre  Dame  has 
been  held  up  over  Paris  by  a  height  far  greater  than  that 
of  its  twin  towers :  the  Cathedral  is  present  to  us  from 
the  first  page  to  the  last;  the  title  has  given  us  the  clew, 
and  already  in  the  Palace  of  Justice  the  story  begins  to 
attach  itself  to  that  central  building  by  character  after 
character.  It  is  purely  an  effect  of  mirage ;  Notre  Dame 
does  not,  in  reality,  thus  dominate  and  stand  out  above 
the  city  ;  and  any  one  who  should  visit  it,  in  the 
spirit  of  the  Scott-tourists  to  Edinburgh  or  the  Tros- 
sachs,  would  be  almost  offended  at  finding  nothing  more 
than  this  old  church  thrust  away  into  a  corner.  It  is 
purely  an  effect  of  mirage,  as  we  say ;  but  it  is  an  effect 
that  permeates  and  possesses  the  whole  book  with  as- 
tonishing consistency  and  strength.  And  then,  Hugo 
has  peopled  this  Gothic  city,  and,  above  all,  this  Gothic 
church,  with  a  race  of  men  even  more  distinctly  Gothic 
than  their  surroundings.  We  know  this  generation 
already :  we  have  seen  them  clustered  about  the  worn 
capitals  of  pillars,  or  craning  forth  over  the  church-leads 
with  the  open  mouths  of  gargoyles.  About  them  all 
there  is  that  sort  of  stiff  quaint  unreality,  that  conjunc- 
tion of  the  grotesque,  and  even  of  a  certain  bourgeois 

28 


VICTOR  HUGO'S   ROMANCES 

snugness,  with  passionate  contortion  and  horror,  that  is 
so  characteristic  of  Gothic  art.  Esmeralda  is  somewhat 
an  exception ;  she  and  the  goat  traverse  the  story  like 
two  children  who  have  wandered  in  a  dream.  The 
finest  moment  of  the  book  is  when  these  two  share 
with  the  two  other  leading  characters,  Dom  Claude  and 
Quasimodo,  the  chill  shelter  of  the  old  cathedral.  It  is 
here  that  we  touch  most  intimately  the  generative  ar- 
tistic idea  of  the  romance :  are  they  not  all  four  taken 
out  of  some  quaint  moulding,  illustrative  of  the  Beati- 
tudes, or  the  Ten  Commandments,  or  the  seven  deadly 
sins  ?  What  is  Quasimodo  but  an  animated  gargoyle  > 
What  is  the  whole  book  but  the  reanimation  of  Gothic 
art? 

It  is  curious  that  in  this,  the  earliest  of  the  five  great 
romances,  there  should  be  so  little  of  that  extravagance 
that  latterly  we  have  come  almost  to  identify  with  the 
author's  manner.  Yet  even  here  we  are  distressed  by 
words,  thoughts,  and  incidents  that  defy  belief  and 
alienate  the  sympathies.  The  scene  of  the  in  pace,  for 
example,  in  spite  of  its  strength,  verges  dangerously  on 
the  province  of  the  penny  novelist.  I  do  not  believe 
that  Quasimodo  rode  upon  the  bell;  I  should  as  soon 
imagine  that  he  swung  by  the  clapper.  And  again  the 
following  two  sentences,  out  of  an  otherwise  admirable 
chapter,  surely  surpass  what  it  has  ever  entered  into  the 
heart  of  any  other  man  to  imagine  (vol.  ii.  p.  i8o)  :  "  II 
souflfrait  tant  que  par  instants  il  s'arrachait  des  poignees 
de  cheveux,  pour  voir  s'ils  ne  blanchissaient pas. ' '  And, 
p.  i8i  :  *'Ses  pensees  etaient  si  insupportables  qu'il 
prenait  sa  tete  a  deux  mains  et  tachait  de  I'arracher  de 
ses  6paules pour  la hri&er  surle pavL" 

29 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

One  other  fault,  before  we  pass  on.  In  spite  of  the 
horror  and  misery  that  pervade  all  of  his  later  work, 
there  is  in  it  much  less  of  actual  melodrama  than  here, 
and  rarely,  I  should  say  never,  that  sort  of  brutality, 
that  useless  insufferable  violence  to  the  feelings,  which 
is  the  last  distinction  between  melodrama  and  true 
tragedy.  Now,  in  Notre  Dame,  the  whole  story  of  Es- 
meralda's passion  for  the  worthless  archer  is  unpleasant 
enough ;  but  when  she  betrays  herself  in  her  last  hiding- 
place,  herself  and  her  wretched  mother,  by  calling  out 
to  this  sordid  hero  who  has  long  since  forgotten  her — 
well,  that  is  just  one  of  those  things  that  readers  will 
not  forgive;  they  do  not  like  it,  and  they  are  quite  right; 
life  is  hard  enough  for  poor  mortals,  without  having  it 
indefinitely  embittered  for  them  by  bad  art. 

We  look  in  vain  for  any  similar  blemish  in  Les  Misi^ 
rabies.  Here,  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  perhaps  the 
nearest  approach  to  literary  restraint  that  Hugo  has  ever 
made:  there  is  here  certainly  the  ripest  and  most  easy 
development  of  his  powers.  It  is  the  moral  intention 
of  this  great  novel  to  awaken  us  a  little,  if  it  may  be — 
for  such  awakenings  are  unpleasant — to  the  great  cost 
of  this  society  that  we  enjoy  and  profit  by,  to  the  labour 
and  sweat  of  those  who  support  the  litter,  civilisation, 
in  which  we  ourselves  are  so  smoothly  carried  forward. 
People  are  all  glad  to  shut  their  eyes;  and  it  gives  them 
a  very  simple  pleasure  when  they  can  forget  that  our 
laws  commit  a  million  individual  injustices,  to  be  once 
roughly  just  in  the  general ;  that  the  bread  that  we  eat, 
and  the  quiet  of  the  family,  and  all  that  embellishes  life 
and  makes  it  worth  having,  have  to  be  purchased  by 

30 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

death — by  the  deaths  of  animals,  and  the  deaths  of  men 
wearied  out  with  labour,  and  the  deaths  of  those  crimi- 
nals called  tyrants  and  revolutionaries,  and  the  deaths 
of  those  revolutionaries  called  criminals.  It  is  to  some- 
thing of  all  this  that  Victor  Hugo  wishes  to  open  men's 
eyes  in  Les  Miserables;  and  this  moral  lesson  is  worked 
out  in  masterly  coincidence  with  the  artistic  effect.  The 
deadly  weight  of  civilisation  to  those  who  are  below 
presses  sensibly  on  our  shoulders  as  we  read.  A  sort 
of  mocking  indignation  grows  upon  us  as  we  find  So- 
ciety rejecting,  again  and  again,  the  services  of  the  most 
serviceable;  setting  Jean  Valjean  to  pick  oakum,  casting 
Galileo  into  prison,  even  crucifying  Christ.  There  is 
a  haunting  and  horrible  sense  of  insecurity  about  the 
book.  The  terror  we  thus  feel  is  a  terror  for  the  ma- 
chinery of  law,  that  we  can  hear  tearing,  in  the  dark, 
good  and  bad  between  its  formidable  wheels  with  the 
iron  stolidity  of  all  machinery,  human  or  divine.  This 
terror  incarnates  itself  sometimes  and  leaps  horribly  out 
upon  us;  as  when  the  crouching  mendicant  looks  up, 
and  Jean  Valjean,  in  the  light  of  the  street  lamp,  recog- 
nises the  face  of  the  detective ;  as  when  the  lantern  of 
the  patrol  flashes  suddenly  through  the  darkness  of  the 
sewer;  or  as  when  the  fugitive  comes  forth  at  last  at 
evening,  by  the  quiet  riverside,  and  finds  the  police 
there  also,  waiting  stolidly  for  vice  and  stolidly  satisfied 
to  take  virtue  instead.  The  whole  book  is  full  of  op- 
pression, and  full  of  prejudice,  which  is  the  great  cause 
of  oppression.  We  have  the  prejudices  of  M.  Gillenor- 
mand,  the  prejudices  of  Marius,  the  prejudices  in  revolt 
that  defend  the  barricade,  and  the  throned  prejudices 
that  carry  it  by  storm.     And  then  we  have  the  admi- 

31 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

rable  but  ill-written  character  of  Javert,  the  man  who 
had  made  a  religion  of  the  police,  and  would  not  sur- 
vive the  moment  when  he  learned  that  there  was  an- 
other truth  outside  the  truth  of  laws;  a  just  creation, 
over  which  the  reader  will  do  well  to  ponder. 

With  so  gloomy  a  design  this  great  work  is  still  full 
of  life  and  light  and  love.  The  portrait  of  the  good 
Bishop  is  one  of  the  most  agreeable  things  in  modern 
literature.  The  whole  scene  at  Montfermeil  is  full  of  the 
charm  that  Hugo  knows  so  well  how  to  throw  about 
children.  Who  can  forget  the  passage  where  Cosette, 
sent  out  at  night  to  draw  water,  stands  in  admiration 
before  the  illuminated  booth,  and  the  huckster  behind 
"  lui  faisait  un  peu  I'efTet  d'etre  le  Pere  eternel  ?  "  The 
pathos  of  the  forlorn  sabot  laid  trustingly  by  the  chimney 
in  expectation  of  the  Santa  Claus  that  was  not,  takes  us 
fairly  by  the  throat;  there  is  nothing  in  Shakespeare  that 
touches  the  heart  more  nearly.  The  loves  of  Cosette  and 
Marius  are  very  pure  and  pleasant,  and  we  cannot  refuse 
our  affection  to  Gavroche,  although  we  may  make  a 
mental  reservation  of  our  profound  disbelief  in  his  ex- 
istence. Take  it  for  all  in  all,  there  are  few  books  in  the 
world  that  can  be  compared  with  it.  There  is  as  much 
calm  and  serenity  as  Hugo  has  ever  attained  to;  the 
melodramatic  coarsenesses  that  disfigured  Notre  Dame 
are  no  longer  present.  There  is  certainly  much  that  is 
painfully  improbable;  and  again,  the  story  itself  is  a  little 
too  well  constructed ;  it  produces  on  us  the  effect  of  a 
puzzle,  and  we  grow  incredulous  as  we  find  that  every 
character  fits  again  and  again  into  the  plot,  and  is,  like 
the  child's  cube,  serviceable  on  six  faces;  things  ate  not 
so  well  arranged  in  life  as  all  that  comes  to.     Some  of 

32 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

the  digressions,  also,  seem  out  of  place,  and  do  nothing 
but  interrupt  and  irritate.  But  when  all  is  said,  the  book 
remains  of  masterly  conception  and  of  masterly  develop- 
ment, full  of  pathos,  full  of  truth,  full  of  a  high  elo- 
quence. 

Superstition  and  social  exigency  having  been  thus 
dealt  with  in  the  first  two  members  of  the  series,  it  re- 
mained for  Les  Travailleurs  de  la  Mer  to  show  man 
hand  to  hand  with  the  elements,  the  last  form  of  ex- 
ternal force  that  is  brought  against  him.  And  here  once 
more  the  artistic  effect  and  the  moral  lesson  are  worked 
out  together,  and  are,  indeed,  one.  Gilliat,  alone  upon 
the  reef  at  his  herculean  task,  offers  a  type  of  human  in- 
dustry in  the  midst  of  the  vague  "diffusion  of  forces 
into  the  illimitable,"  and  the  visionary  development  of 
** wasted  labour"  in  the  sea,  and  the  winds,  and  the 
clouds.  No  character  was  ever  thrown  into  such  strange 
relief  as  Gilliat.  The  great  circle  of  sea-birds  that  come 
wonderingly  around  him  on  the  night  of  his  arrival, 
strikes  at  once  the  note  of  his  pre-eminence  and  isola- 
tion. He  fills  the  whole  reef  with  his  indefatigable  toil; 
this  solitary  spot  in  the  ocean  rings  with  the  clamour  of 
his  anvil;  we  see  him  as  he  comes  and  goes,  thrown  out 
sharply  against  the  clear  background  of  the  sea.  And 
yet  his  isolation  is  not  to  be  compared  with  the  isolation 
of  Robinson  Crusoe,  for  example;  indeed,  no  two  books 
could  be  more  instructive  to  set  side  by  side  than  Les 
Travailleurs  and  this  other  of  the  old  days  before  art 
had  learned  to  occupy  itself  with  what  lies  outside  of 
human  will.  Crusoe  was  one  sole  centre  of  interest  in 
the  midst  of  a  nature  utterly  dead  and  utterly  unrealised 

33 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND  BOOKS 

by  the  artist;  but  this  is  not  how  we  feel  with  Gilliat; 
we  feel  that  he  is  opposed  by  a  "dark  coalition  of 
forces,"  that  an  "  immense  animosity  "  surrounds  him; 
we  are  the  witnesses  of  the  terrible  warfare  that  he 
wages  with  **  the  silent  inclemency  of  phenomena  go- 
ing their  own  way,  and  the  great  general  law,  implaca- 
ble and  passive:"  "a.  conspiracy  of  the  indiflferency  of 
things  "  is  against  him.  There  is  not  one  interest  on 
the  reef,  but  two.  Just  as  we  recognise  Gilliat  for  the 
hero,  we  recognise,  as  implied  by  this  indifferency  of 
things,  this  direction  of  forces  to  some  purpose  outside 
our  purposes,  yet  another  character  who  may  almost 
take  rank  as  the  villain  of  the  novel,  and  the  two  face  up 
to  one  another  blow  for  blow,  feint  for  feint,  until,  in  the 
storm,  they  fight  it  epically  out,  and  Gilliat  remains  the 
victor;  —  a  victor,  however,  who  has  still  to  encoun- 
ter the  octopus.  I  need  say  nothing  of  the  grewsome, 
repulsive  excellence  of  that  famous  scene;  it  will  be 
enough  to  remind  the  reader  that  Gilliat  is  in  pursuit  of 
a  crab  when  he  is  himself  assaulted  by  the  devil  fish, 
and  that  this,  in  its  way,  is  the  last  touch  to  the  inner 
significance  of  the  book ;  here,  indeed,  is  the  true  posi- 
tion of  man  in  the  universe. 

But  in  Les  Travatlleurs,  with  all  its  strength,  with 
all  its  eloquence,  with  all  the  beauty  and  fitness  of 
its  main  situations,  we  cannot  conceal  from  ourselves 
that  there  is  a  thread  of  something  that  will  not 
bear  calm  scrutiny.  There  is  much  that  is  disquiet- 
ing about  the  storm,  admirably  as  it  begins.  I  am 
very  doubtful  whether  it  would  be  possible  to  keep  the 
boat  from  foundering  in  such  circumstances,  by  any 
amount  of  breakwater  and  broken  rock.    I  do  not  un- 

M 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

derstand  the  way  in  which  the  waves  are  spoken  of,  and 
prefer  just  to  take  it  as  a  loose  way  of  speaking,  and 
pass  on.  And  lastly,  how  does  it  happen  that  the  sea 
was  quite  calm  next  day  ?  Is  this  great  hurricane  a  piece 
of  scene-painting  after  all  ?  And  when  we  have  for- 
given Gilliat's  prodigies  of  strength  (although,  in  sober- 
ness, he  reminds  us  more  of  Porthos  in  the  Vicomte  de 
Bragelonne  than  is  quite  desirable),  what  is  to  be  said  to 
his  suicide,  and  how  are  we  to  condemn  in  adequate 
terms  that  unprincipled  avidity  after  effect,  which  tells 
us  that  the  sloop  disappeared  over  the  horizon,  and  the 
head  under  the  water,  at  one  and  the  same  moment  ? 
Monsieur  Hugo  may  say  what  he  will,  but  we  know 
better;  we  know  very  well  that  they  did  not;  a  thing 
like  that  raises  up  a  despairing  spirit  of  opposition  in  a 
man's  readers;  they  give  him  the  lie  fiercely,  as  they 
read.  Lastly,  we  have  here  already  some  beginning  of 
that  curious  series  of  English  blunders,  that  makes  us 
wonder  if  there  are  neither  proof  sheets  nor  judicious 
friends  in  the  whole  of  France,  and  affects  us  sometimes 
with  a  sickening  uneasiness  as  to  what  may  be  our  own 
exploits  when  we  touch  upon  foreign  countries  and  for- 
eign tongues.  It  is  here  that  we  shall  find  the  famous 
'*  first  of  the  fourth,"  and  many  English  words  that  may 
be  comprehensible  perhaps  in  Paris.  It  is  here  that  we 
learn  that  "laird"  in  Scotland  is  the  same  title  as 
'Mord"*  in  England.  Here,  also,  is  an  account  of  a 
Highland  soldier's  equipment,  which  we  recommend  to 
the  lovers  of  genuine  fun. 

In  U Homme  qui  Rtt,  it  was  Hugo's  object  to  ''de- 
nounce "  (as  he  would  say  himself)  the  aristocratic 

35 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

principle  as  it  was  exhibited  in  England ;  and  this  pur- 
pose, somewhat  more  unmitigatedly  satiric  than  that  of 
the  two  last,  must  answer  for  much  that  is  unpleasant  in 
the  book.  The  repulsiveness  of  the  scheme  of  the  story, 
and  the  manner  in  which  it  is  bound  up  with  impossi- 
bilities and  absurdities,  discourage  the  reader  at  the  out- 
set, and  it  needs  an  effort  to  take  it  as  seriously  as  it 
deserves.  And  yet  when  we  judge  it  deliberately,  it 
will  be  seen  that,  here  again,  the  story  is  admirably 
adapted  to  the  moral.  The  constructive  ingenuity  ex- 
hibited throughout  is  almost  morbid.  Nothing  could 
be  more  happily  imagined,  as  a  reductio  ad  absurdum 
of  the  aristocratic  principle,  than  the  adventures  of 
Gwynplaine,  the  itinerant  mountebank,  snatched  sud- 
denly out  of  his  little  way  of  life,  and  installed  without 
preparation  as  one  of  the  hereditary  legislators  of  a  great 
country.  It  is  with  a  very  bitter  irony  that  the  paper, 
on  which  all  this  depends,  is  left  to  float  for  years  at 
the  will  of  wind  and  tide.  What,  again,  can  be  finer 
in  conception  than  that  voice  from  the  people  heard  sud- 
denly in  the  House  of  Lords,  in  solemn  arraignment  of 
the  pleasures  and  privileges  of  its  splendid  occupants  ? 
The  horrible  laughter,  stamped  forever  "by  order  of  the 
king  "  upon  the  face  of  this  strange  spokesman  of  de- 
mocracy, adds  yet  another  feature  of  justice  to  the  scene; 
in  all  time,  travesty  has  been  the  argument  of  oppres- 
sion; and,  in  all  time,  the  oppressed  might  have  made 
this  answer:  "If  I  am  vile,  is  it  not  your  system  that 
has  made  me  so  ?  "  This  ghastly  laughter  gives  occa- 
sion, moreover,  for  the  one  strain  of  tenderness  running 
through  the  web  of  this  unpleasant  story :  the  love  of 
the  blind  girl  Dea  for  the  monster.     It  is  a  most  be- 

36 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

nignant  providence  that  thus  harmoniously  brings 
together  these  two  misfortunes;  it  is  one  of  those  com- 
pensations, one  of  those  afterthoughts  of  a  relenting 
destiny,  that  reconcile  us  from  time  to  time  to  the  evil 
that  is  in  the  world;  the  atmosphere  of  the  book  is 
purified  by  the  presence  of  this  pathetic  love;  it  seems 
to  be  above  the  story  somehow,  and  not  of  it,  as  the  full 
moon  over  the  night  of  some  foul  and  feverish  city. 

There  is  here  a  quality  in  the  narration  more  intimate 
and  particular  than  is  general  with  Hugo;  but  it  must 
be  owned,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the  book  is  wordy, 
and  even,  now  and  then,  a  little  wearisome.  Ursus  and 
his  wolf  are  pleasant  enough  companions ;  but  the  for- 
mer is  nearly  as  much  an  abstract  type  as  the  latter. 
There  is  a  beginning,  also,  of  an  abuse  of  conventional 
conversation,  such  as  may  be  quite  pardonable  in  the 
drama  where  needs  must,  but  is  without  excuse  in  the 
romance.  Lastly,  I  suppose  one  must  say  a  word  or 
two  about  the  weak  points  of  this  not  immaculate 
novel;  and  if  so,  it  will  be  best  to  distinguish  at  once. 
The  large  family  of  English  blunders,  to  which  we  have 
alluded  already  in  speaking  of  Les  Travailleurs,  are  of 
a  sort  that  is  really  indifferent  in  art.  If  Shakespeare 
makes  his  ships  cast  anchor  by  some  seaport  of  Bohe- 
mia, if  Hugo  imagines  Tom-Tim-Jack  to  be  a  likely 
nickname  for  an  English  sailor,  or  if  either  Shakespeare, 
or  Hugo,  or  Scott,  for  that  matter,  be  guilty  of  fig- 
ments enough  to  confuse  the  march  of  a  whole  history 
—  anachronisms  enough  to  overset  all  chronology,"  ^ 
the  life  of  their  creations,  the  artistic  truth  and  accuracy 
of  their  work,  is  not  so  much  as  compromised.  But 
1  Prefatory  letter  to  Peveril  of  the  Peak. 
37 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

when  we  come  upon  a  passage  like  the  sinking  of  the 
**Ourque"in  this  romance,  we  can  do  nothing  but 
cover  our  face  with  our  hands:  the  conscientious  reader 
feels  a  sort  of  disgrace  in  the  very  reading.  For  such 
artistic  falsehoods,  springing  from  what  I  have  called 
already  an  unprincipled  avidity  after  effect,  no  amount 
of  blame  can  be  exaggerated;  and  above  all,  when  the 
criminal  is  such  a  man  as  Victor  Hugo.  We  cannot  for- 
give in  him  what  we  might  have  passed  over  in  a  third- 
rate  sensation  novelist.  Little  as  he  seems  to  know  of 
the  sea  and  nautical  affairs,  he  must  have  known  very 
well  that  vessels  do  not  go  down  as  he  makes  the 
**  Ourque "  go  down;  he  must  have  known  that  such  a 
liberty  with  fact  was  against  the  laws  of  the  game,  and 
incompatible  with  all  appearance  of  sincerity  in  concep- 
tion or  workmanship. 

In  each  of  these  books,  one  after  another,  there  has 
been  some  departure  from  the  traditional  canons  of  ro- 
mance; but  taking  each  separately,  one  would  have 
feared  to  make  too  much  of  these  departures,  or  to  found 
any  theory  upon  what  was  perhaps  purely  accidental. 
The  appearance  of  Quatre  yingt  Trei:{e  has  put  us  out 
of  the  region  of  such  doubt.  Like  a  doctor  who  has 
long  been  hesitating  how  to  classify  an  epidemic  mal- 
ady, we  have  come  at  last  upon  a  case  so  well  marked 
that  our  uncertainty  is  at  an  end.  It  is  a  novel  built 
upon  "a  sort  of  enigma,"  which  was  at  that  date  laid 
before  revolutionary  France,  and  which  is  presented  by 
Hugo  to  Tellmarch,  to  Lantenac,  to  Gauvain,  and  very 
terribly  to  Cimourdain,  each  of  whom  gives  his  own  so- 
lution of  the  question,  clement  or  stern,  according  to  the 

58 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

temper  of  his  spirit.  That  enigma  was  this:  ''Can  a 
good  action  be  a  bad  action  ?  Does  not  he  who  spares 
the  wolf  kill  the  sheep  ?  "  This  question,  as  I  say,  meets 
with  one  answer  after  another  during  the  course  of  the 
book,  and  yet  seems  to  remain  undecided  to  the  end. 
And  something  in  the  same  way,  although  one  char- 
acter, or  one  set  of  characters,  after  another  comes  to 
the  front  and  occupies  our  attention  for  the  moment, 
we  never  identify  our  interest  with  any  of  these  tempo- 
rary heroes  nor  regret  them  after  they  are  withdrawn. 
We  soon  come  to  regard  them  somewhat  as  special 
cases  of  a  general  law ;  what  we  really  care  for  is  some- 
thing that  they  only  imply  and  body  forth  to  us.  We 
know  how  history  continues  through  century  after  cen- 
tury ;  how  this  king  or  that  patriot  disappears  from  its 
pages  with  his  whole  generation,  and  yet  we  do  not 
cease  to  read,  nor  do  we  even  feel  as  if  we  had  reached 
any  legitimate  conclusion,  because  our  interest  is  not  in 
the  men,  but  in  the  country  that  they  loved  or  hated, 
benefited  or  injured.  And  so  it  is  here :  Gauvain  and 
Cimourdain  pass  away,  and  we  regard  them  no  more 
than  the  lost  armies  of  which  we  find  the  cold  statistics 
in  military  annals ;  what  we  regard  is  what  remains  be- 
hind; it  is  the  principle  that  put  these  men  where  they 
were,  that  filled  them  for  a  while  with  heroic  inspira- 
tion, and  has  the  power,  now  that  they  are  fallen,  to  in- 
spire others  with  the  same  courage.  The  interest  of  the 
novel  centres  about  revolutionary  France:  just  as  the 
plot  is  an  abstract  judicial  difficulty,  the  hero  is  an  ab- 
stract historical  force.  And  this  has  been  done,  not,  as 
it  would  have  been  before,  by  the  cold  and  cumbersome 
machinery  of  allegory,  but  with  bold,  straightforward 

39 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

realism,  dealing  only  with  the  objective  materials  of  art, 
and  dealing  with  them  so  masterfully  that  the  palest 
abstractions  of  thought  come  before  us,  and  move  our 
hopes  and  fears,  as  if  they  were  the  young  men  and 
maidens  of  customary  romance. 

The  episode  of  the  mother  and  children  in  Quatre^ 
Vingt  Treiie  is  equal  to  anything  that  Hugo  has  ever 
written.  There  is  one  chapter  in  the  second  volume,  for 
instance,  called  '"Sein  guiri,  coeur  satgnant/ '  that  is  full 
of  the  very  stuff  of  true  tragedy,  and  nothing  could  be 
more  delightful  than  the  humours  of  the  three  children 
on  the  day  before  the  assault.  The  passage  on  La  Ven- 
dee is  really  great,  and  the  scenes  in  Paris  have  much  of 
the  same  broad  merit.  The  book  is  full,  as  usual,  of 
pregnant  and  splendid  sayings.  But  when  thus  much 
is  conceded  by  way  of  praise,  we  come  to  the  other 
scale  of  the  balance,  and  find  this,  also,  somewhat 
heavy.  There  is  here  a  yet  greater  over  employment 
of  conventional  dialogue  than  in  L' Homme  qui  Rit ; 
and  much  that  should  have  been  said  by  the  author 
himself,  if  it  were  to  be  said  at  all,  he  has  most  un- 
warrantably put  into  the  mouths  of  one  or  other  of  his 
characters.  We  should  like  to  know  what  becomes  of 
the  main  body  of  the  troop  in  the  wood  of  La  Saudraie 
during  the  thirty  pages  or  so  in  which  the  foreguard 
lays  aside  all  discipline,  and  stops  to  gossip  over  a  wo- 
man and  some  children.  We  have  an  unpleasant  idea 
forced  upon  us  at  one  place,  in  spite  of  all  the  good- 
natured  incredulity  that  we  can  summon  up  to  resist  it. 
Is  it  possible  that  Monsieur  Hugo  thinks  they  ceased  to 
steer  the  corvette  while  the  gun  was  loose  ?  Of  the 
chapter  in  which  Lantenac  and  Halmalho  are  alone  to- 

40 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

gether  in  the  boat,  the  less  said  the  better;  of  course,  if 
there  were  nothing  else,  they  would  have  been  swamped 
thirty  times  over  during  the  course  of  Lantenac's  ha- 
rangue. Again,  after  Lantenac  has  landed,  we  have  scenes 
of  almost  inimitable  workmanship  that  suggest  the 
epithet  "  statuesque  "  by  their  clear  and  trenchant  out- 
line; but  the  tocsin  scene  will  not  do,  and  the  tocsin 
unfortunately  pervades  the  whole  passage,  ringing  con- 
tinually in  our  ears  with  a  taunting  accusation  of  false- 
hood. And  then,  when  we  come  to  the  place  where 
Lantenac  meets  the  royalists,  under  the  idea  that  he  is 
going  to  meet  the  republicans,  it  seems  as  if  there  were 
a  hitch  in  the  stage  mechanism.  I  have  tried  it  over  in 
every  way,  and  I  cannot  conceive  any  disposition  that 
would  make  the  scene  possible  as  narrated. 

Such  then,  with  their  faults  and  their  signal  excellences, 
are  the  five  great  novels. 

Romance  is  a  language  in  which  many  persons  learn 
to  speak  with  a  certain  appearance  of  fluency ;  but  there 
are  few  who  can  ever  bend  it  to  any  practical  need,  few 
who  can  ever  be  said  to  express  themselves  in  it.  It 
has  become  abundantly  plain  in  the  foregoing  examina- 
tion that  Victor  Hugo  occupies  a  high  place  among 
those  few.  He  has  always  a  perfect  command  over  his 
stories ;  and  we  see  that  they  are  constructed  with  a 
high  regard  to  some  ulterior  purpose,  and  that  every 
situation  is  informed  with  moral  significance  and 
grandeur.  Of  no  other  man  can  the  same  thing  be  said 
in  the  same  degree.  His  romances  are  not  to  be  con- 
fused with  "the  novel  with  a  purpose  "as  familiar  to 
the  English  reader:  this  is  generally  the  model  of  in- 
competence ;  and  we  see  the  moral  clumsily  forced  into 

4« 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

every  hole  and  corner  of  the  story,  or  thrown  externally 
over  it  like  a  carpet  over  a  railing.  Now  the  moral  sig- 
nificance, with  Hugo,  is  of  the  essence  of  the  romance; 
it  is  the  organising  principle.  If  you  could  somehow 
despoil  Les  Miserables  or  Les  Travailleurs  of  their  dis- 
tinctive lesson,  you  would  find  that  the  story  had  lost 
its  interest  and  the  book  was  dead. 

Having  thus  learned  to  subordinate  his  story  to  an 
idea,  to  make  his  art  speak,  he  went  on  to  teach  it  to  say 
things  heretofore  unaccustomed.  If  you  look  back  at 
the  five  books  of  which  we  have  now  so  hastily  spoken, 
you  will  be  astonished  at  the  freedom  with  which 
the  original  purposes  of  story-telling  have  been  laid 
aside  and  passed  by.  Where  are  now  the  two  lovers 
who  descended  the  main  watershed  of  all  the  Waver- 
ley  novels,  and  all  the  novels  that  have  tried  to  follow 
in  their  wake  ?  Sometimes  they  are  almost  lost  sight 
of  before  the  solemn  isolation  of  a  man  against  the  sea 
and  sky,  as  in  Les  Travailleurs ;  sometimes,  as  in 
Les  Miserables,  they  merely  figure  for  a  while,  as  a 
beautiful  episode  in  the  epic  of  oppression;  some- 
times they  are  entirely  absent,  as  in  Quatre  Fingt 
Trei^e.  There  is  no  hero  in  Notre  Dame:  in  Les 
Miserables  it  is  an  old  man:  in  L' Homme  qui  Rit  it  is 
a  monster :  in  Quatre  Vingt  Trei^^e  it  is  the  Revolu- 
tion. Those  elements  that  only  began  to  show  them- 
selves timidly,  as  adjuncts,  in  the  novels  of  Walter 
Scott,  have  usurped  ever  more  and  more  of  the  can- 
vas; until  we  find  the  whole  interest  of  one  of  Hugo's 
romances  centring  around  matter  that  Fielding  would 
have  banished  from  his  altogether,  as  being  out  of 
the  field  of  fiction.      So    we    have    elemental  forces 

43 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

occupying  nearly  as  large  a  place,  playing  (so  to 
speak)  nearly  as  important  a  role,  as  the  man,  Gilliat, 
who  opposes  and  overcomes  them.  So  we  find  the 
fortunes  of  a  nation  put  upon  the  stage  with  as  much 
vividness  as  ever  before  the  fortunes  of  a  village  maiden 
or  a  lost  heir;  and  the  forces  that  oppose  and  corrupt  a 
principle  holding  the  attention  quite  as  strongly  as  the 
wicked  barons  or  dishonest  attorneys  of  the  past.  Hence 
those  individual  interests  that  were  supreme  in  Fielding, 
and  even  in  Scott,  stood  out  over  everything  else  and 
formed  as  it  were  the  spine  of  the  story,  figure  here 
only  as  one  set  of  interests  among  many  sets,  one  force 
among  many  forces,  one  thing  to  be  treated  out  of  a 
whole  world  of  things  equally  vivid  and  important.  So 
that,  for  Hugo,  man  is  no  longer  an  isolated  spirit  with- 
out antecedent  or  relation  here  below,  but  a  being 
involved  in  the  action  and  reaction  of  natural  forces, 
himself  a  centre  of  such  action  and  reaction ;  or  an  unit 
in  a  great  multitude,  chased  hither  and  thither  by  epi- 
demic terrors  and  aspirations,  and,  in  all  seriousness, 
blown  about  by  every  wind  of  doctrine.  This  is  a 
long  way  that  we  have  travelled :  between  such  work 
and  the  work  of  Fielding  is  there  not,  indeed,  a  great 
gulf  in  thought  and  sentiment .? 

Art,  thus  conceived,  realises  for  men  a  larger  portion 
of  life,  and  that  portion  one  that  it  is  more  difficult  for 
them  to  realise  unaided;  and,  besides  helping  them  to 
feel  more  intensely  those  restricted  personal  interests 
which  are  patent  to  all,  it  awakes  in  them  some  con- 
sciousness of  those  more  general  relations  that  are  so 
strangely  invisible  to  the  average  man  in  ordinary  moods. 
It  helps  to  keep  man  in  his  place  in  nature,  and,  above 

43 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

all,  it  helps  him  to  understand  more  intelligently  the 
responsibilities  of  his  place  in  society.  And  in  all  this 
generalisation  of  interest,  we  never  miss  those  small 
humanities  that  are  at  the  opposite  pole  of  excellence  in 
art;  and  while  we  admire  the  intellect  that  could  see 
life  thus  largely,  we  are  touched  with  another  sentiment 
for  the  tender  heart  that  slipped  the  piece  of  gold  into 
Cosette's  sabot,  that  was  virginally  troubled  at  the  flut- 
tering of  her  dress  in  the  spring  wind,  or  put  the  blind 
girl  beside  the  deformity  of  the  laughing  man.  This, 
then,  is  the  last  praise  that  we  can  award  to  these  ro- 
mances. The  author  has  shown  a  power  of  just  sub- 
ordination hitherto  unequalled ;  and  as,  in  reaching  for- 
ward to  one  class  of  effects,  he  has  not  been  forgetful 
or  careless  of  the  other,  his  work  is  more  nearly  com- 
plete work,  and  his  art,  with  all  its  imperfections,  deals 
more  comprehensively  with  the  materials  of  life  than 
that  of  any  of  his  otherwise  more  sure  and  masterly 
predecessors. 

These  five  books  would  have  made  a  very  great  fame 
for  any  writer,  and  yet  they  are  but  one  facade  of  the 
monument  that  Victor  Hugo  has  erected  to  his  genius. 
Everywhere  we  find  somewhat  the  same  greatness, 
somewhat  the  same  infirmities.  In  his  poems  and 
plays  there  are  the  same  unaccountable  protervities 
that  have  already  astonished  us  in  the  romances. 
There,  too,  is  the  same  feverish  strength,  welding 
the  fiery  iron  of  his  idea  under  forge-hammer  re- 
petitions—  an  emphasis  that  is  somehow  akin  to 
weakness  —  a  strength  that  is  a  little  epileptic.  He 
stands  so  far  above  all  his  contemporaries,  and  so  in- 
comparably excels  them  in  richness,  breadth,  variety, 

44 


VICTOR  HUGO'S  ROMANCES 

and  moral  earnestness,  that  we  almost  feel  as  if  he  had 
a  sort  of  right  to  fall  oftener  and  more  heavily  than 
others;  but  this  does  not  reconcile  us  to  seeing  him 
profit  by  the  privilege  so  freely.  We  like  to  have,  in 
our  great  men,  something  that  is  above  question ;  we 
like  to  place  an  implicit  faith  in  them,  and  see  them  al- 
ways on  the  platform  of  their  greatness ;  and  this,  un- 
happily, cannot  be  with  Hugo.  As  Heine  said  long 
ago,  his  is  a  genius  somewhat  deformed ;  but,  deformed 
as  it  is,  we  accept  it  gladly ;  we  shall  have  the  wisdom 
to  see  where  his  foot  slips,  but  we  shall  have  the  justice 
also  to  recognise  in  him  one  of  the  greatest  artists  of 
our  generation,  and,  in  many  ways,  one  of  the  greatest 
artists  of  time.  If  we  look  back,  yet  once,  upon  these 
five  romances,  we  see  blemishes  such  as  we  can  lay 
to  the  charge  of  no  other  man  in  the  number  of  the 
famous ;  but  to  what  other  man  can  we  attribute  such 
sweeping  innovations,  such  a  new  and  significant 
presentment  of  the  life  of  man,  such  an  amount,  if  we 
merely  think  of  the  amount,  of  equally  consummate 
performance  ? 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 

TO  write  with  authority  about  another  man,  we  must 
have  fellow-feeling  and  some  common  ground  of 
experience  with  our  subject.  We  may  praise  or  blame 
according  as  we  find  him  related  to  us  by  the  best  or 
worst  in  ourselves;  but  it  is  only  in  virtue  of  some  re- 
lationship that  we  can  be  his  judges,  even  to  condemn. 
Feelings  which  we  share  and  understand  enter  for  us 
into  the  tissue  of  the  man's  character;  those  to  which 
we  are  strangers  in  our  own  experience  we  are  inclined 
to  regard  as  blots,  exceptions,  inconsistencies,  and  ex- 
cursions of  the  diabolic ;  we  conceive  them  with  repug- 
nance, explain  them  with  difficulty,  and  raise  our  hands 
to  heaven  in  wonder  when  we  find  them  in  conjunction 
with  talents  that  we  respect  or  virtues  that  we  admire. 
David,  king  of  Israel,  would  pass  a  sounder  judgment 
on  a  man  than  either  Nathaniel  or  David  Hume.  Now, 
Principal  Shairp's  recent  volume,  although  I  believe  no 
one  will  read  it  without  respect  and  interest,  has  this 
one  capital  defect  —  that  there  is  imperfect  sympathy 
between  the  author  and  the  subject,  between  the  critic 
and  the  personality  under  criticism.  Hence  an  inor- 
ganic, if  not  an  incoherent,  presentation  of  both  the 
poems  and  the  man.     Of  Holy  Willie's  Prayer,  Princi- 

46 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

pal  Shairp  remarks  that  "those  who  have  loved  most 
what  was  best  in  Burns's  poetry  must  have  regretted 
that  it  was  ever  written."  To  the  Jolly  "Beggars,  so  far 
as  my  memory  serves  me,  he  refers  but  once;  and  then 
only  to  remark  on  the  "strange,  not  to  say  painful," 
circumstance  that  the  same  hand  which  wrote  the  Cot- 
ter's Saturday  Night  should  have  stooped  to  write  the 
Jolly  Beggars.  The  Saturday  Night  may  or  may  not  be 
an  admirable  poem ;  but  its  significance  is  trebled,  and 
the  power  and  range  of  the  poet  first  appears,  when  it 
is  set  beside  the  Jolly  Beggars.  To  take  a  man's  work 
piecemeal,  except  with  the  design  of  elegant  extracts, 
is  the  way  to  avoid,  and  not  to  perform,  the  critic's 
duty.  The  same  defect  is  displayed  in  the  treatment 
of  Burns  as  a  man,  which  is  broken,  apologetical,  and 
confused.  The  man  here  presented  to  us  is  not  that 
Burns,  teres  atque  rotundus  —  a  burly  figure  in  litera- 
ture, as,  from  our  present  vantage  of  time,  we  have  be- 
gun to  see  him.  This,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Burns  as 
he  may  have  appeared  to  a  contemporary  clergyman, 
whom  we  shall  conceive  to  have  been  a  kind  and  indul- 
gent but  orderly  and  orthodox  person,  anxious  to  be 
pleased,  but  too  often  hurt  and  disappointed  by  the  be- 
haviour of  his  red-hot  protege,  and  solacing  himself 
with  the  explanation  that  the  poet  was  "the  most  in- 
consistent of  men."  If  you  are  so  sensibly  pained  by 
the  misconduct  of  your  subject,  and  so  paternally  de- 
lighted with  his  virtues,  you  will  always  be  an  excel- 
lent gentleman,  but  a  somewhat  questionable  biog- 
rapher. Indeed,  we  can  only  be  sorry  and  surprised 
that  Principal  Shairp  should  have  chosen  a  theme  so 
uncongenial.     When  we  find  a  man  writing  on  Burns, 

47 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

who  likes  neither  Holy  Willie,  nor  the  Beggars,  nor  the 
Ordination,  nothing  is  adequate  to  the  situation  but  the 
old  cry  of  Geronte:  '*  Que  diable  allait-il  faire  dans  cette 
galere  ?  "  And  every  merit  we  find  in  the  book,  which 
is  sober  and  candid  in  a  degree  unusual  with  biogra- 
phies of  Burns,  only  leads  us  to  regret  more  heartily 
that  good  work  should  be  so  greatly  thrown  away. 

It  is  far  from  my  intention  to  tell  over  again  a  story 
that  has  been  so  often  told ;  but  there  are  certainly  some 
points  in  the  character  of  Burns  that  will  bear  to  be 
brought  out,  and  some  chapters  in  his  life  that  demand 
a  brief  rehearsal.  The  unity  of  the  man's  nature,  for 
all  its  richness,  has  fallen  somewhat  out  of  sight  in  the 
pressure  of  new  information  and  the  apologetical  cere- 
mony of  biographers.  Mr.  Carlyle  made  an  inimitable 
bust  of  the  poet's  head  of  gold ;  may  1  not  be  forgiven 
if  my  business  should  have  more  to  do  with  the  feet, 
which  were  of  clay  ? 


YOUTH 

Any  view  of  Burns  would  be  misleading  which  passed 
over  in  silence  the  influences  of  his  home  and  his  father. 
That  father,  William  Burnes,  after  having  been  for 
many  years  a  gardener,  took  a  farm,  married,  and,  like 
an  emigrant  in  a  new  country,  built  himself  a  house 
with  his  own  hands.  Poverty  of  the  most  distressing 
sort,  with  sometimes  the  near  prospect  of  a  gaol,  embit- 
tered the  remainder  of  his  life.  Chill,  backward,  and 
austere  with  strangers,  grave  and  imperious  in  his  fam- 
ily, he  was  yet  a  man  of  very  unusual  parts  and  of  an 
affectionate  nature.     On  his  way  through  life  he  had 

48 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

remarked  much  upon  other  men,  with  more  result  in 
theory  than  practice;  and  he  had  reflected  upon  many 
subjects  as  he  delved  the  garden.  His  great  delight 
was  in  solid  conversation ;  he  would  leave  his  work  to 
talk  with  the  schoolmaster  Murdoch;  and  Robert,  when 
he  came  home  late  at  night,  not  only  turned  aside  re- 
buke but  kept  his  father  two  hours  beside  the  fire  by 
the  charm  of  his  merry  and  vigorous  talk.  Nothing  is 
more  characteristic  of  the  class  in  general,  and  William 
Burnes  in  particular,  than  the  pains  he  took  to  get  proper 
schooling  for  his  boys,  and,  when  that  was  no  longer 
possible,  the  sense  and  resolution  with  which  he  set 
himself  to  supply  the  deficiency  by  his  own  influence. 
For  many  years  he  was  their  chief  companion ;  he  spoke 
with  them  seriously  on  all  subjects  as  if  they  had  been 
grown  men ;  at  night,  when  work  was  over,  he  taught 
them  arithmetic ;  he  borrowed  books  for  them  on  his- 
tory, science,  and  theology;  and  he  felt  it  his  duty  to 
supplement  this  last  —  the  trait  is  laughably  Scottish 
—  by  a  dialogue  of  his  own  composition,  where  his 
own  private  shade  of  orthodoxy  was  exactly  repre- 
sented. He  would  go  to  his  daughter  as  she  stayed 
afield  herding  cattle,  to  teach  her  the  names  of  grasses 
and  wild  flowers,  or  to  sit  by  her  side  when  it  thun- 
dered. Distance  to  strangers,  deep  family  tenderness, 
love  of  knowledge,  a  narrow,  precise,  and  formal  read- 
ing of  theology  —  everything  we  learn  of  him  hangs 
well  together,  and  builds  up  a  popular  Scotch  type.  If 
I  mention  the  name  of  Andrew  Fairservice,  it  is  only  as 
I  might  couple  for  an  instant  Dugald  Dalgetty  with  old 
Marshal  Loudon,  to  help  out  the  reader's  comprehension 
by  a  popular  but  unworthy  instance  of  a  class.     Such 

49 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

was  the  influence  of  this  good  and  wise  man  that  his 
household  became  a  school  to  itself,  and  neighbours 
who  came  into  the  farm  at  meal-time  would  find  the 
whole  family,  father,  brothers,  and  sisters,  helping  them- 
selves with  one  hand,  and  holding  a  book  in  the  other. 
We  are  surprised  at  the  prose  style  of  Robert ;  that  of 
Gilbert  need  surprise  us  no  less ;  even  William  writes  a 
remarkable  letter  for  a  young  man  of  such  slender  op- 
portunities. One  anecdote  marks  the  taste  of  the  fam- 
ily. Murdoch  brought  Titus  Andronicus,  and,  with 
such  dominie  elocution  as  we  may  suppose,  began  to 
read  it  aloud  before  this  rustic  audience;  but  when  he 
had  reached  the  passage  where  Tamora  insults  Lavinia, 
with  one  voice  and  **in  an  agony  of  distress"  they  re- 
fused to  hear  it  to  an  end.  In  such  a  father  and  with 
such  a  home,  Robert  had  already  the  making  of  an  ex- 
cellent education ;  and  what  Murdoch  added,  although 
it  may  not  have  been  much  in  amount,  was  in  charac- 
ter the  very  essence  of  a  literary  training.  Schools  and 
colleges,  for  one  great  man  whom  they  complete,  per- 
haps unmake  a  dozen;  the  strong  spirit  can  do  well 
upon  more  scanty  fare. 

Robert  steps  before  us,  almost  from  the  first,  in  his 
complete  character — a  proud,  headstrong,  impetuous 
lad,  greedy  of  pleasure,  greedy  of  notice;  in  his  own 
phrase  "panting  after  distinction,"  and  in  his  brother's 
"cherishing  a  particular  jealousy  of  people  who  were 
richer  or  of  more  consequence  than  himself: "  with  all 
this,  he  was  emphatically  of  the  artist  nature.  Already 
he  made  a  conspicuous  figure  in  Tarbolton  church,  with 
the  only  tied  hair  in  the  parish,  "and  his  plaid,  which 
was  of  a  particular  colour,  wrapped  in  a  particular 

50 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

manner  round  his  shoulders."  Ten  years  later,  when  a 
married  man,  the  father  of  a  family,  a  farmer,  and  an 
officer  of  Excise,  we  shall  find  him  out  fishing  in  mas- 
querade, with  fox-skin  cap,  belted  great-coat,  and  great 
Highland  broadsword.  He  liked  dressing  up,  in  fact, 
for  its  own  sake.  This  is  the  spirit  which  leads  to  the 
extravagant  array  of  Latin  Quarter  students,  and  the 
proverbial  velveteen  of  the  English  landscape-painter; 
and,  though  the  pleasure  derived  is  in  itself  merely  per- 
sonal, it  shows  a  man  who  is,  to  say  the  least  of  it,  not 
pained  by  general  attention  and  remark.  His  father 
wrote  the  family  name  Burnes;  Robert  early  adopted 
the  orthography  Burness  from  his  cousin  in  the  Mearns ; 
and  in  his  twenty-eighth  year  changed  it  once  more  to 
Burns.  It  is  plain  that  the  last  transformation  was  not 
made  without  some  qualm ;  for  in  addressing  his  cousin 
he  adheres,  in  at  least  one  more  letter,  to  spelling  num- 
ber two.  And  this,  again,  shows  a  man  preoccupied 
about  the  manner  of  his  appearance  even  down  to  the 
name,  and  little  willing  to  follow  custom.  Again,  he 
was  proud,  and  justly  proud,  of  his  powers  in  conver- 
sation. To  no  other  man's  have  we  the  same  conclu- 
sive testimony  from  different  sources  and  from  every 
rank  of  life.  It  is  almost  a  commonplace  that  the  best 
of  his  works  was  what  he  said  in  talk.  Robertson  the 
historian  "scarcely  ever  met  any  man  whose  conver- 
sation displayed  greater  vigour;"  the  Duchess  of  Gor- 
don declared  that  he  "carried  her  off  her  feet;"  and, 
when  he  came  late  to  an  inn,  the  servants  would  get 
out  of  bed  to  hear  him  talk.  But,  in  these  early  days 
at  least,  he  was  determined  to  shine  by  any  means. 
He  made  himself  feared  in  the  village  for  his  tongue. 

5» 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

He  would  crush  weaker  men  to  their  faces,  or  even  per- 
haps—  for  the  statement  of  Sillar  is  not  absolute  —  say 
cutting  things  of  his  acquaintances  behind  their  back. 
At  the  church  door,  between  sermons,  he  would  parade 
his  religious  views  amid  hisses.  These  details  stamp 
the  man.  He  had  no  genteel  timidities  in  the  conduct 
of  his  life.  He  loved  to  force  his  personality  upon  the 
world.  He  would  please  himself,  and  shine.  Had  he 
lived  in  the  Paris  of  1830,  and  joined  his  lot  with  the 
Romantics,  we  can  conceive  him  \MX\X\x\g  Jehan  for  Jean, 
swaggering  in  Gautier's  red  waistcoat,  and  horrifying 
Bourgeois  in  a  public  cafe  with  paradox  and  gasconnade. 
A  leading  trait  throughout  his  whole  career  was  his 
desire  to  be  in  love.  Ne  fait  pas  ce  tour  qui  veut.  His 
affections  were  often  enough  touched,  but  perhaps  never 
engaged.  He  was  all  his  life  on  a  voyage  of  discovery, 
but  it  does  not  appear  conclusively  that  he  ever  touched 
the  happy  isle.  A  man  brings  to  love  a  deal  of  ready- 
made  sentiment,  and  even  from  childhood  obscurely 
prognosticates  the  symptoms  of  this  vital  malady.  Burns 
was  formed  for  love;  he  had  passion,  tenderness,  and  a 
singular  bent  in  the  direction;  he  could  foresee,  with 
the  intuition  of  an  artist,  what  love  ought  to  be;  and  he 
could  not  conceive  a  worthy  life  without  it.  But  he  had 
ill-fortune,  and  was  besides  so  greedy  after  every  shadow 
of  the  true  divinity,  and  so  much  the  slave  of  a  strong 
temperament,  that  perhaps  his  nerve  was  relaxed  and 
his  heart  had  lost  the  power  of  self-devotion  before  an 
opportunity  occurred.  The  circumstances  of  his  youth 
doubtless  counted  for  something  in  the  result.  For  the 
lads  of  Ayrshire,  as  soon  as  the  day's  work  was  over 
and  the  beasts  were  stabled,  would  take  the  road,  it 

5a 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT   BURNS 

might  be  in  a  winter  tempest,  and  travel  perhaps  miles 
by  moss  and  moorland  to  spend  an  hour  or  two  in 
courtship.  Rule  lo  of  the  Bachelors'  Club  at  Tarbolton 
provides  that  "every  man  proper  for  a  member  of  this 
Society  must  be  a  professed  lover  of  one  or  more  of  the 
female  sex."  The  rich,  as  Burns  himself  points  out, 
may  have  a  choice  of  pleasurable  occupations,  but  these 
lads  had  nothing  but  their  *  *  cannie  hour  at  e'en. "  It  was 
upon  love  and  flirtation  that  this  rustic  society  was  built; 
gallantry  was  the  essence  of  life  among  the  Ayrshire 
hills  as  well  as  in  the  Court  of  Versailles ;  and  the  days 
were  distinguished  from  each  other  by  love-letters, 
meetings,  tiffs,  reconciliations,  and  expansions  to  the 
chosen  confidant,  as  in  a  comedy  of  Marivaux.  Here 
was  a  field  for  a  man  of  Burns's  indiscriminate  personal 
ambition,  where  he  might  pursue  his  voyage  of  dis- 
covery in  quest  of  true  love,  and  enjoy  temporary  tri- 
umphs by  the  way.  He  was  "constantly  the  victim 
of  some  fair  enslaver  "  —  at  least,  when  it  was  not  the 
other  way  about;  and  there  were  often  underplots  and 
secondary  fair  enslavers  in  the  background.  Many — or 
may  we  not  say  most? — of  these  affairs  were  entirely 
artificial.  One,  he  tells  us,  he  began  out  of  "a  vanity 
of  showing  his  parts  in  courtship,"  for  he  piqued  him- 
self on  his  ability  at  a  love-letter.  But,  however  they 
began,  these  flames  of  his  were  fanned  into  a  passion 
ere  the  end;  and  he  stands  unsurpassed  in  his  power 
of  self-deception,  and  positively  without  a  competitor 
in  the  art,  to  use  his  own  words,  of  "battering  himself 
into  a  warm  affection,"  —  a  debilitating  and  futile  exer- 
cise. Once  he  had  worked  himself  into  the  vein,  "the 
agitations  of  his  mind  and  body  "  were  an  astonishment 

5y 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN    AND   BOOKS 

to  all  who  knew  him.  Such  a  course  as  this,  however 
pleasant  to  a  thirsty  vanity,  was  lowering  to  his  nature. 
He  sank  more  and  more  toward  the  professional  Don 
Juan.  With  a  leer  of  what  the  French  call  fatuity,  he 
bids  the  belles  of  Mauchline  beware  of  his  seductions; 
and  the  same  cheap  self-satisfaction  finds  a  yet  uglier 
vent  when  he  plumes  himself  on  the  scandal  at  the  birth 
of  his  first  bastard.  We  can  well  believe  what  we  hear 
of  his  facility  in  striking  up  an  acquaintance  with  women : 
he  would  have  conquering  manners;  he  would  bear 
down  upon  his  rustic  game  with  the  grace  that  comes 
of  absolute  assurance  —  the  Richelieu  of  Lochlea  or  Moss- 
giel.  In  yet  another  manner  did  these  quaint  ways  of 
courtship  help  him  into  fame.  If  he  were  great  as  prin- 
cipal, he  was  unrivalled  as  confidant.  He  could  enter 
into  a  passion;  he  could  counsel  wary  moves,  being,  in 
his  own  phrase,  so  old  a  hawk;  nay,  he  could  turn  a 
letter  for  some  unlucky  swain,  or  even  string  a  few  lines 
of  verse  that  should  clinch  the  business  and  fetch  the 
hesitating  fair  one  to  the  ground.  Nor,  perhaps,  was 
it  only  his  "curiosity,  zeal,  and  intrepid  dexterity  "  that 
recommended  him  for  a  second  in  such  affairs ;  it  must 
have  been  a  distinction  to  have  the  assistance  and  ad- 
vice of  Rab  the  Ranter;  and  one  who  was  in  no  way 
formidable  by  himself  might  grow  dangerous  and  at- 
tractive through  the  fame  of  his  associate. 

I  think  we  can  conceive  him,  in  these  early  years,  in 
that  rough  moorland  country,  poor  among  the  poor 
with  his  seven  pounds  a  year,  looked  upon  with  doubt 
by  respectable  elders,  but  for  all  that  the  best  talker, 
the  best  letter-writer,  the  most  famous  lover  and  con- 
fidant, the  laureate  poet,  and  the  only  man  who  wore 

54 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 

his  hair  tied  in  the  parish.  He  says  he  had  then  as 
high  a  notion  of  himself  as  ever  after;  and  I  can  well 
believe  it.  Among  the  youth  he  walked  facile  prin- 
ceps,  an  apparent  god ;  and  even  if,  from  time  to  time, 
the  Reverend  Mr.  Auld  should  swoop  upon  him  with  the 
thunders  of  the  Church,  and,  in  company  with  seven 
others,  Rab  the  Ranter  must  figure  some  fine  Sunday 
on  the  stool  of  repentance,  would  there  not  be  a  sort 
of  glory,  an  infernal  apotheosis,  in  so  conspicuous  a 
shame  ?  Was  not  Richelieu  in  disgrace  more  idolised 
than  ever  by  the  dames  of  Paris  ?  and  when  was  the 
highwayman  most  acclaimed  but  on  his  way  to  Tyburn  ? 
Or,  to  take  a  simile  from  nearer  home,  and  still  more 
exactly  to  the  point,  what  could  even  corporal  punish- 
ment avail,  administered  by  a  cold,  abstract,  unearthly 
schoolmaster,  against  the  influence  and  fame  of  the 
school's  hero? 

And  now  we  come  to  the  culminating  point  of  Burns's 
early  period.  He  began  to  be  received  into  the  unknown 
upper  world.  His  fame  soon  spread  from  among  his 
fellow-rebels  on  the  benches,  and  began  to  reach  the 
ushers  and  monitors  of  this  great  Ayrshire  academy. 
This  arose  in  part  from  his  lax  views  about  religion ;  for 
at  this  time  that  old  war  of  the  creeds  and  confessors, 
which  is  always  grumbling  from  end  to  end  of  our  poor 
Scotland,  brisked  up  in  these  parts  into  a  hot  and  viru- 
lent skirmish ;  and  Burns  found  himself  identified  with 
the  opposition  party, —  a  clique  of  roaring  lawyers  and 
half-heretical  divines,  with  wit  enough  to  appreciate  the 
value  of  the  poet's  help,  and  not  sufficient  taste  to  mod- 
erate his  grossness  and  personality.  We  may  judge  of 
their  surprise  when  Holy  Willie  was  put  into  their 

55 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

hand;  like  the  amorous  lads  of  Tarbolton,  they  recog- 
nised in  him  the  best  of  seconds.  His  satires  began  to 
go  the  round  in  manuscript;  Mr.  Aiken,  one  of  the  law- 
yers, "read  him  into  fame;"  he  himself  was  soon  wel- 
come in  many  houses  of  a  better  sort,  where  his  admi- 
rable talk,  and  his  manners,  which  he  had  direct  from 
his  Maker,  except  for  a  brush  he  gave  them  at  a  country 
dancing  school,  completed  what  his  poems  had  begun. 
We  have  a  sight  of  him  at  his  first  visit  to  Adamhill,  in 
his  ploughman's  shoes,  coasting  around  the  carpet  as 
though  that  were  sacred  ground.  But  he  soon  grew 
used  to  carpets  and  their  owners ;  and  he  was  still  the 
superior  of  all  whom  he  encountered,  and  ruled  the 
roost  in  conversation.  Such  was  the  impression  made, 
that  a  young  clergyman,  himself  a  man  of  ability,  trem- 
bled and  became  confused  when  he  saw  Robert  enter 
the  church  in  which  he  was  to  preach.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  the  poet  determined  to  publish :  he  had  now 
stood  the  test  of  some  publicity,  and  under  this  hopeful 
impulse  he  composed  in  six  winter  months  the  bulk  of 
his  more  important  poems.  Here  was  a  young  man 
who,  from  a  very  humble  place,  was  mounting  rapidly ; 
from  the  cynosure  of  a  parish,  he  had  become  the  talk 
of  a  county;  once  the  bard  of  rural  courtships,  he  was 
now  about  to  appear  as  a  bound  and  printed  poet  in  the 
world's  bookshops. 

A  few  more  intimate  strokes  are  necessary  to  com- 
plete the  sketch.  This  strong  young  ploughman,  who 
feared  no  competitor  with  the  flail,  suffered  like  a  fine 
lady  from  sleeplessness  and  vapours ;  he  would  fall  into 
the  blackest  melancholies,  and  be  filled  with  remorse  for 
the  past  and  terror  for  the  future.     He  was  still  not  per- 

56 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT  BURNS 

haps  devoted  to  religion,  but  haunted  by  it;  and  at  a 
touch  of  sickness  prostrated  himself  before  God  in  what  I 
can  only  call  unmanly  penitence.  As  he  had  aspirations 
beyond  his  place  in  the  world,  so  he  had  tastes,  thoughts, 
and  weaknesses  to  match.  He  loved  to  walk  under  a 
wood  to  the  sound  of  a  winter  tempest;  he  had  a  sin- 
gular tenderness  for  animals;  he  carried  a  book  with 
him  in  his  pocket  when  he  went  abroad,  and  wore  out 
in  this  service  two  copies  of  the  Man  of  Feeling.  With 
young  people  in  the  field  at  work  he  was  very  long- 
suffering;  and  when  his  brother  Gilbert  spoke  sharply 
to  them  — '*  O  man,  ye  are  no  for  young  folk,"  he  would 
say,  and  give  the  defaulter  a  helping  hand  and  a  smile. 
In  the  hearts  of  the  men  whom  he  met,  he  read  as  in  a 
book;  and,  what  is  yet  more  rare,  his  knowledge  of 
himself  equalled  his  knowledge  of  others.  There  are  no 
truer  things  said  of  Burns  than  what  is  to  be  found  in 
his  own  letters.  Country  Don  Juan  as  he  was,  he  had 
none  of  that  blind  vanity  which  values  itself  on  what  it 
is  not;  he  knew  his  own  strength  and  weakness  to  a 
hair:  he  took  himself  boldly  for  what  he  was,  and,  ex- 
cept in  moments  of  hypochondria,  declared  himself  con- 
tent. 

THE   LOVE   STORIES 

On  the  night  of  Mauchline  races,  1785,  the  young 
men  and  women  of  the  place  joined  in  a  penny  ball, 
according  to  their  custom.  In  the  same  set  danced 
Jean  Armour,  the  master-mason's  daughter,  and  our 
dark-eyed  Don  Juan.  His  dog  (not  the  immortal  Luath, 
but  a  successor  unknown  to  fame,  caret  quia  vatesacro), 
apparently  sensible  of  some  neglect,  followed  his  mas- 

57 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ter  to  and  fro,  to  the  confusion  of  the  dancers.  Some 
mirthful  comments  followed;  and  Jean  heard  the  poet 
say  to  his  partner — or,  as  I  should  imagine,  laughingly 
launch  the  remark  to  the  company  at  large — that  **  he 
wished  he  could  get  any  of  the  lasses  to  like  him  as 
well  as  his  dog."  Some  time  after,  as  the  girl  was 
bleaching  clothes  on  Mauchline  green,  Robert  chanced 
to  go  by,  still  accompanied  by  his  dog;  and  the  dog, 
''scouring  in  long  excursion,"  scampered  with  four 
black  paws  across  the  linen.  This  brought  the  two 
into  conversation;  when  Jean,  with  a  somewhat  hoy- 
denish  advance,  inquired  if  "he  had  yet  got  any  of  the 
lasses  to  like  him  as  well  as  his  dog  ?  "  It  is  one  of  the 
misfortunes  of  the  professional  Don  Juan  that  his  honour 
forbids  him  to  refuse  battle ;  he  is  in  life  like  the  Roman 
soldier  upon  duty,  or  like  the  sworn  physician  who 
must  attend  on  all  diseases.  Burns  accepted  the  provo- 
cation; hungry  hope  reawakened  in  his  heart;  here  was 
a  girl — pretty,  simple  at  least,  if  not  honestly  stupid, 
and  plainly  not  averse  to  his  attentions:  it  seemed  to 
him  once  more  as  if  love  might  here  be  waiting  him. 
Had  he  but  known  the  truth!  for  this  facile  and  empty- 
headed  girl  had  nothing  more  in  view  than  a  flirtation ; 
and  her  heart,  from  the  first  and  on  to  the  end  of  her 
story,  was  engaged  by  another  man.  Burns  once  more 
commenced  the  celebrated  process  of  "battering  him- 
self into  a  warm  affection ; "  and  the  proofs  of  his  suc- 
cess are  to  be  found  in  many  verses  of  the  period.  Nor 
did  he  succeed  with  himself  only;  Jean,  with  her  heart 
still  elsewhere,  succumbed  to  his  fascination,  and  early 
in  the  next  year  the  natural  consequence  became  mani- 
fest.    It  was  a  heavy  stroke  for  this  unfortunate  couple. 

58 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

They  had  trifled  with  life,  and  were  now  rudely  re- 
minded of  life's  serious  issues.  Jean  awoke  to  the  ruin 
of  her  hopes ;  the  best  she  had  now  to  expect  was  mar- 
riage with  a  man  who  was  a  stranger  to  her  dearest 
thoughts ;  she  might  now  be  glad  if  she  could  get  what 
she  would  never  have  chosen.  As  for  Burns,  at  the 
stroke  of  the  calamity  he  recognised  that  his  voyage  of 
discovery  had  led  him  into  a  wrong  hemisphere — that 
he  was  not,  and  never  had  been,  really  in  love  with 
Jean.  Hear  him  in  the  pressure  of  the  hour.  "Against 
two  things,"  he  writes,  "  1  am  as  fixed  as  fate — staying 
at  home,  and  owning  her  conjugally.  The  first,  by 
heaven,  I  will  not  do ! — the  last,  by  hell,  I  will  never 
do !"  And  then  he  adds,  perhaps  already  in  a  more  re- 
lenting temper:  "  If  you  see  Jean,  tell  her  I  will  meet 
her,  so  God  help  me  in  my  hour  of  need."  They  met 
accordingly ;  and  Burns,  touched  with  her  misery,  came 
down  from  these  heights  of  independence,  and  gave 
her  a  written  acknowledgment  of  marriage.  It  is  the 
punishment  of  Don  Juanism  to  create  continually  false 
positions — relations  in  life  which  are  wrong  in  them- 
selves, and  which  it  is  equally  wrong  to  break  or  to 
perpetuate.  This  was  such  a  case.  Worldly  Wiseman 
would  have  laughed  and  gone  his  way ;  let  us  be  glad 
that  Burns  was  better  counselled  by  his  heart.  When 
we  discover  that  we  can  be  no  longer  true,  the  next 
best  is  to  be  kind.  I  dare  say  he  came  away  from 
that  interview  not  very  content,  but  with  a  glorious 
conscience;  and  as  he  went  homeward,  he  would  sing 
his  favourite,  *'How  are  Thy  servants  blest,  O  Lord!" 
Jean,  on  the  other  hand,  armed  with  her  'Mines,"  con- 
iided  her  position  to  the  master-mason,  her  father,  and 

59 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

his  wife.  Burns  and  his  brother  were  then  in  a  fair  way 
to  ruin  themselves  in  their  farm ;  the  poet  was  an  exe- 
crable match  for  any  well-to-do  country  lass ;  and  per- 
haps old  Armour  had  an  inkling  of  a  previous  attach- 
ment on  his  daughter's  part.  At  least,  he  was  not  so 
much  incensed  by  her  slip  from  virtue  as  by  the  mar- 
riage which  had  been  designed  to  cover  it.  Of  this  he 
would  not  hear  a  word.  Jean,  who  had  besought  the 
acknowledgment  only  to  appease  her  parents,  and  not 
at  all  from  any  violent  inclination  to  the  poet,  readily 
gave  up  the  paper  for  destruction;  and  all  parties  im- 
agined, although  wrongly,  that  the  marriage  was  thus 
dissolved.  To  a  proud  man  like  Burns  here  was  a 
crushing  blow.  The  concession  which  had  been  wrung 
from  his  pity  was  now  publicly  thrown  back  in  his 
teeth.  The  Armour  family  preferred  disgrace  to  his  con- 
nection. Since  the  promise,  besides,  he  had  doubtless 
been  busy  "battering  himself"  back  again  into  his  af- 
fection for  the  girl ;  and  the  blow  would  not  only  take 
him  in  his  vanity,  but  wound  him  at  the  heart. 

He  relieved  himself  in  verse ;  but  for  such  a  smart- 
ing affront  manuscript  poetry  was  insufficient  to  con- 
sole him.  He  must  find  a  more  powerful  remedy  in 
good  flesh  and  blood,  and  after  this  discomfiture,  set 
forth  again  at  once  upon  his  voyage  of  discovery  in  quest 
of  love.  It  is  perhaps  one  of  the  most  touching  things 
in  human  nature,  as  it  is  a  commonplace  of  psychology, 
that  when  a  man  has  just  lost  hope  or  confidence  in  one 
love,  he  is  then  most  eager  to  find  and  lean  upon  an- 
other. The  universe  could  not  be  yet  exhausted;  there 
must  be  hope  and  love  waiting  for  him  somewhere;  and 
so,  with  his  head  down,  this  poor,  insulted  poet  ran 

60 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

once  more  upon  his  fate.  There  was  an  innocent  and 
gentle  Highland  nursery-maid  at  service  in  a  neighbour- 
ing family;  and  he  had  soon  battered  himself  and  her 
into  a  warm  affection  and  a  secret  engagement.  Jean's 
marriage  lines  had  not  been  destroyed  till  March  13, 
1786  ;  yet  all  was  settled  between  Burns  and  Mary 
Campbell  by  Sunday,  May  14,  when  they  met  for  the 
last  time,  and  said  farewell  with  rustic  solemnities  upon 
the  banks  of  Ayr.  They  each  wet  their  hands  in  a 
stream,  and,  standing  one  on  either  bank,  held  a  Bible 
between  them  as  they  vowed  eternal  faith.  Then  they 
exchanged  Bibles,  on  one  of  which  Burns,  for  greater 
security,  had  inscribed  texts  as  to  the  binding  nature  of 
an  oath ;  and  surely,  if  ceremony  can  do  aught  to  fix  the 
wandering  affections,  here  were  two  people  united  for 
life.  Mary  came  of  a  superstitious  family,  so  that  she 
perhaps  insisted  on  these  rites ;  but  they  must  have  been 
eminently  to  the  taste  of  Burns  at  this  period ;  for  noth- 
ing would  seem  superfluous,  and  no  oath  great  enough, 
to  stay  his  tottering  constancy. 

Events  of  consequence  now  happened  thickly  in  the 
poet's  life.  His  book  was  announced;  the  Armours 
sought  to  summon  him  at  law  for  the  aliment  of  the 
child;  he  lay  here  and  there  in  hiding  to  correct  the 
sheets ;  he  was  under  an  engagement  for  Jamaica,  where 
Mary  was  to  join  him  as  his  wife;  now,  he  had  **  orders 
within  three  weeks  at  latest  to  repair  aboard  the  Nancy, 
Captain  Smith ; "  now  his  chest  was  already  on  the  road 
to  Greenock;  and  now,  in  the  wild  autumn  weather  on 
the  moorland,  he  measures  verses  of  farewell: — 

"  The  bursting  tears  my  heart  declare; 
Farewell  the  bonny  banks  of  Ayr!" 
61 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

But  the  great  master  dramatist  had  secretly  another  in- 
tention for  the  piece;  by  the  most  violent  and  compli- 
cated solution,  in  which  death  and  birth  and  sudden 
fame  all  play  a  part  as  interposing  deities,  the  act-drop 
fell  upon  a  scene  of  transformation.  Jean  was  brought 
to  bed  of  twins,  and,  by  an  amicable  arrangement,  the 
Burnses  took  the  boy  to  bring  up  by  hand,  while  the 
girl  remained  with  her  mother.  The  success  of  the 
book  was  immediate  and  emphatic ;  it  put  £,20  at  once 
into  the  author's  purse;  and  he  was  encouraged  upon 
all  hands  to  go  to  Edinburgh  and  push  his  success  in  a 
second  and  larger  edition.  Third  and  last  in  these  series 
of  interpositions,  a  letter  came  one  day  to  Mossgiel  Farm 
for  Robert.  He  went  to  the  window  to  read  it ;  a  sudden 
change  came  over  his  face,  and  he  left  the  room  without 
a  word.  Years  afterward,  when  the  story  began  to  leak 
out,  his  family  understood  that  he  had  then  learned  the 
death  of  Highland  Mary.  Except  in  a  few  poems  and 
a  few  dry  indications  purposely  misleading  as  to  date, 
Burns  himself  made  no  reference  to  this  passage  of  his 
life;  it  was  an  adventure  of  which,  for  I  think  sufficient 
reasons,  he  desired  to  bury  the  details.  Of  one  thing 
we  may  be  glad :  in  after  years  he  visited  the  poor  girl's 
mother,  and  left  her  with  the  impression  that  he  was 
"a  real  warm-hearted  chield." 

Perhaps  a  month  after  he  received  this  intelligence, 
he  set  out  for  Edinburgh  on  a  pony  he  had  borrowed 
from  a  friend.  The  town  that  winter  was  "agog  with 
the  ploughman  poet. "  Robertson,  Dugald  Stewart,  Blair, 
**  Duchess  Gordon  and  all  the  gay  world,"  were  of  his 
acquaintance.  Such  a  revolution  is  not  to  be  found  in 
literary  history.     He  was  now,  it  must  be  remembered, 

62 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

twenty-seven  years  of  age;  he  had  fought  since  his 
early  boyhood  an  obstinate  battle  against  poor  soil,  bad 
seed,  and  inclement  seasons,  wading  deep  in  Ayrshire 
mosses,  guiding  the  plough  in  the  furrow,  wielding 
''the  thresher's  weary  flingin'-tree ; "  and  his  education, 
his  diet,  and  his  pleasures,  had  been  those  of  a  Scotch 
countryman.  Now  he  stepped  forth  suddenly  among 
the  polite  and  learned.  We  can  see  him  as  he  then  was, 
in  his  boots  and  buckskins,  his  blue  coat  and  waistcoat 
striped  with  buff  and  blue,  like  a  farmer  in  his  Sunday 
best;  the  heavy  ploughman's  figure  firmly  planted  on 
its  burly  legs ;  his  face  full  of  sense  and  shrewdness,  and 
with  a  somewhat  melancholy  air  of  thought,  and  his 
large  dark  eye  "literallv  glowing"  as  he  spoke.  **I 
never  saw  such  another  eye  in  a  human  head,"  says 
Walter  Scott,  ''though  I  have  seen  the  most  distin- 
guished men  of  my  time."  With  men,  whether  they 
were  lords  or  omnipotent  critics,  his  manner  was  plain, 
dignified,  and  free  from  bashfulness  or  affectation.  If 
he  made  a  slip,  he  had  the  social  courage  to  pass  on  and 
refrain  from  explanation.  He  was  not  embarrassed  in 
this  society,  because  he  read  and  judged  the  men ;  he 
could  spy  snobbery  in  a  titled  lord ;  and,  as  for  the  crit- 
ics, he  dismissed  their  system  in  an  epigram.  "These 
gentlemen,"  said  he,  "remind  me  of  some  spinsters  in 
my  country  who  spin  their  thread  so  fine  that  it  is  neither 
fit  for  weft  nor  woof"  Ladies,  on  the  other  hand,  sur- 
prised him ;  he  was  scarce  commander  of  himself  in  their 
society ;  he  was  disqualified  by  his  acquired  nature  as  a 
Don  Juan ;  and  he,  who  had  been  so  much  at  his  ease 
with  country  lasses,  treated  the  town  dames  to  an  ex- 
treme of  deference.     One  lady,  who  met  him  at  a  ball 

63 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

gave  Chambers  a  speaking  sketch  of  his  demeanour. 
"His  manner  was  not  prepossessing  —  scarcely,  she 
thinks,  manly  or  natural.  It  seemed  as  if  he  affected  a 
rusticity  or  landertness,  so  that  when  he  said  the  music 
was  'bonnie,  bonnie,'  it  was  like  the  expression  of  a 
child."  These  would  be  company  manners ;  and  doubt- 
less on  a  slight  degree  of  intimacy  the  affectation  would 
grow  less.  And  his  talk  to  women  had  always  "a  turn 
either  to  the  pathetic  or  humorous,  which  engaged  the 
attention  particularly." 

The  Edinburgh  magnates  (to  conclude  this  episode  at 
once)  behaved  well  to  Burns  from  first  to  last.  Were 
heaven-born  genius  to  revisit  us  in  similar  guise,  I  am 
not  venturing  too  far  when  I  say  that  he  need  expect 
neither  so  warm  a  welcome  nor  such  solid  help.  Al- 
though Burns  was  only  a  peasant,  and  one  of  no  very 
elegant  reputation  as  to  morals,  he  was  made  welcome 
to  their  homes.  They  gave  him  a  great  deal  of  good 
advice,  helped  him  to  some  five  hundred  pounds  of 
ready  money,  and  got  him,  as  soon  as  he  asked  it,  a 
place  in  the  Excise.  Burns,  on  his  part,  bore  the  eleva- 
tion with  perfect  dignity ;  and  with  perfect  dignity  re- 
turned, when  the  time  had  come,  into  a  country  privacy 
of  life.  His  powerful  sense  never  deserted  him,  and 
from  the  first  he  recognised  that  his  Edinburgh  popu- 
larity was  but  an  ovation  and  the  affair  of  a  day.  He 
wrote  a  few  letters  in  a  high-flown,  bombastic  vein  of 
gratitude;  but  in  practice  he  suffered  no  man  to  intrude 
upon  his  self-respect.  On  the  other  hand,  he  never 
turned  his  back,  even  for  a  moment,  on  his  old  asso- 
ciates; and  he  was  always  ready  to  sacrifice  an  ac- 
quaintance to  a  friend,  although  the  acquaintance  were 

64 


SOME  ASPECTS   OF   ROBERT   BURNS 

a  duke.  He  would  be  a  bold  man  who  should  promise 
similar  conduct  in  equally  exacting  circumstances.  It 
was,  in  short,  an  admirable  appearance  on  the  stage  of 
life  —  socially  successful,  intimately  self-respecting,  and 
like  a  gentleman  from  first  to  last. 

In  the  present  study,  this  must  only  be  taken  by  the 
way,  while  we  return  to  Burns's  love  affairs.  Even  on 
the  road  to  Edinburgh  he  had  seized  upon  the  oppor- 
tunity of  a  flirtation,  and  had  carried  the  "battering"  so 
far  that  when  next  he  moved  from  town,  it  was  to  steal 
two  days  with  this  anonymous  fair  one.  The  exact 
importance  to  Burns  of  this  affair  may  be  gathered 
from  the  song  in  which  he  commemorated  its  oc- 
currence. '*!  love  the  dear  lassie,"  he  sings,  "because 
she  loves  me;"  or,  in  the  tongue  of  prose:  "Finding 
an  opportunity,  I  did  not  hesitate  to  profit  by  it;  and 
even  now,  if  it  returned,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  profit 
by  it  again."  A  love  thus  founded  has  no  interest  for 
mortal  man.  Meantime,  early  in  the  winter,  and  only 
once,  we  find  him  regretting  Jean  in  his  correspondence. 
"Because"  —  such  is  his  reason  —  "because  he  does 
not  think  he  will  ever  meet  so  delicious  an  armful  again ; " 
and  then,  after  a  brief  excursion  into  verse,  he  goes 
straight  on  to  describe  a  new  episode  in  the  voyage  of 
discovery  with  the  daughter  of  a  Lothian  farmer  for  a 
heroine.  I  must  ask  the  reader  to  follow  all  these  refer- 
ences to  his  future  wife ;  they  are  essential  to  the  com- 
prehension of  Burns's  character  and  fate.  In  June,  we 
find  him  back  at  Mauchline,  a  famous  man.  There,  the 
Armour  family  greeted  him  with  a  "mean,  servile  com- 
pliance," which  increased  his  former  disgust.  Jean  was 
not  less  compliant;  a  second  time  the  poor  girl  sub- 

65 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

mitted  to  the  fascination  of  the  man  whom  she  did  not 
love,  and  whom  she  had  so  cruelly  insulted  little  more 
than  a  year  ago ;  and,  though  Burns  took  advantage  of 
her  weakness,  it  was  in  the  ugliest  and  most  cynical 
spirit,  and  with  a  heart  absolutely  indifferent.  Judge 
of  this  by  a  letter  written  some  twenty  days  after  his 
return — a  letter  to  my  mind  among  the  most  degrading 
in  the  whole  collection  —  a  letter  which  seems  to  have 
been  inspired  by  a  boastful,  libertine  bagman.  "I  am 
afraid,"  it  goes,  ''I  have  almost  ruined  one  source,  the 
principal  one,  indeed,  of  my  former  happiness  —  the 
eternal  propensity  I  always  had  to  fall  in  love.  My  heart 
no  more  glows  with  feverish  rapture;  I  have  no  para- 
disiacal evening  interviews."  Even  the  process  of 
''  battering  "  has  failed  him,  you  perceive.  Still  he  had 
some  one  in  his  eye  —  a  lady,  if  you  please,  with  a  fine 
figure  and  elegant  manners,  and  who  had  "seen  the 
politest  quarters  in  Europe. "  "I  frequently  visited  her, " 
he  writes,  "  and  after  passing  regularly  the  intermediate 
degrees  between  the  distant  formal  bow  and  the  familiar 
grasp  round  the  waist,  I  ventured,  in  my  careless  way, 
to  talk  of  friendship  in  rather  ambiguous  terms;  and 

after  her  return  to ,  I  wrote  her  in  the  same  terms. 

Miss,  construing  my  remarks  further  than  even  I  in- 
tended, flew  off  in  a  tangent  of  female  dignity  and  re- 
serve, like  a  mounting  lark  in  an  April  morning;  and 
wrote  me  an  answer  which  measured  out  very  com- 
pletely what  an  immense  way  I  had  to  travel  before  I 
could  reach  tlie  climate  of  her  favours.  But  I  am  an  old 
hawk  at  the  sport,  and  wrote  her  such  a  cool,  deliberate, 
prudent  reply,  as  brought  my  bird  from  her  aerial  tower- 
ings,  pop,  down  to  my  foot,  like  Corporal  Trim's  hat." 

66 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

I  avow  a  carnal  longing,  after  this  transcription,  to  buffet 
the  Old  Hawk  about  the  ears.  There  is  little  question 
that  to  this  lady  he  must  have  repeated  his  addresses, 
and  that  he  was  by  her  (Miss  Chalmers)  eventually, 
though  not  at  all  unkindly,  rejected.  One  more  detail 
to  characterise  the  period.  Six  months  after  the  date 
of  this  letter.  Burns,  back  in  Edinburgh,  is  served  with 
a  writ  in  meditatione  fugce,  on  behalf  of  some  Edin- 
burgh fair  one,  probably  of  humble  rank,  who  declared 
an  intention  of  adding  to  his  family. 

About  the  beginning  of  December  (1787),  a  new  pe- 
riod opens  in  the  story  of  the  poet's  random  affections. 
He  met  at  a  tea  party  one  Mrs.  Agnes  M'Lehose,  a  mar- 
ried woman  of  about  his  own  age,  who,  with  her  two 
children,  had  been  deserted  by  an  unworthy  husband. 
She  had  wit,  could  use  her  pen,  and  had  read  IVerther 
with  attention.  Sociable,  and  even  somewhat  frisky, 
there  was  a  good,  sound,  human  kernel  in  the  woman ; 
a  warmth  of  love,  strong  dogmatic  religious  feeling,  and 
a  considerable,  but  not  authoritative,  sense  of  the  pro- 
prieties. Of  what  biographers  refer  to  daintily  as  "  her 
somewhat  voluptuous  style  of  beauty,"  judging  from  the 
silhouette  in  Mr.  Scott  Douglas's  invaluable  edition,  the 
reader  will  be  fastidious  if  he  does  not  approve.  Take 
her  for  all  in  all,  I  believe  she  was  the  best  woman 
Burns  encountered.  The  pair  took  a  fancy  for  each 
other  on  the  spot;  Mrs.  M'Lehose,  in  her  turn,  invited 
him  to  tea;  but  the  poet,  in  his  character  of  the  Old 
Hawk,  preferred  a  Ute-a-Ute,  excused  himself  at  the  last 
moment,  and  offered  a  visit  instead.  An  accident  con- 
fined him  to  his  room  for  nearly  a  month,  and  this  led 
to  the  famous  Clarinda  and  Sylvander  correspondence. 

67 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

It  was  begun  in  simple  sport;  they  are  already  at  their 
fifth  or  sixth  exchange,  when  Clarinda  writes:  "It  is 
really  curious  so  much  fun  passing  between  two  per- 
sons who  saw  each  other  only  once  ;  ' '  but  it  is  hardly 
safe  for  a  man  and  woman  in  the  flower  of  their  years 
to  write  almost  daily,  and  sometimes  in  terms  too  am- 
biguous, sometimes  in  terms  too  plain,  and  generally  in 
terms  too  warm,  for  mere  acquaintance.  The  exercise 
partakes  a  little  of  the  nature  of  battering,  and  danger 
may  be  apprehended  when  next  they  meet.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  give  any  account  of  this  remarkable  correspon- 
dence ;  it  is  too  far  away  from  us,  and  perhaps,  not  yet 
far  enough,  in  point  of  time  and  manner;  the  imagina- 
tion is  baffled  by  these  stilted  literary  utterances,  warm- 
ing, in  bravura  passages,  into  downright  truculent  non- 
sense. Clarinda  has  one  famous  sentence  in  which  she 
bids  Sylvander  connect  the  thought  of  his  mistress  with 
the  changing  phases  of  the  year;  it  was  enthusiastically 
admired  by  the  swain,  but  on  the  modern  mind  pro- 
duces mild  amazement  and  alarm.  "Oh,  Clarinda," 
writes  Burns,  "shall  we  not  meet  in  a  state  —  some 
yet  unknown  state  —  of  being,  where  the  lavish  hand 
of  Plenty  shall  minister  to  the  highest  wish  of  Benevo- 
lence, and  where  the  chill  north  wind  of  Prudence  shall 
never  blow  over  the  flowery  field  of  Enjoyment }  "  The 
design  may  be  that  of  an  Old  Hawk,  but  the  style  is 
more  suggestive  of  a  Bird  of  Paradise.  It  is  sometimes 
hard  to  fancy  they  are  not  gravely  making  fun  of  each 
other  as  they  write.  Religion,  poetry,  love,  and  charm- 
ing sensibility,  are  the  current  topics.  "  I  am  delighted, 
charming  Clarinda,  'vith  your  honest  enthusiasm  for  re- 
ligion," writes  Burns;  and  the  pair  entertained  a  fiction 

68 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

that  this  was  their  "favourite  subject."  " This  is  Sun- 
day, "  writes  the  lady,  "  and  not  a  word  on  our  favourite 
subject.  O  fy !  '  divine  Clarinda ! '  "  I  suspect,  although 
quite  unconsciously  on  the  part  of  the  lady,  who  was 
bent  on  his  redemption,  they  but  used  the  favourite  sub- 
ject as  a  stalking-horse.  In  the  meantime,  the  sportive 
acquaintance  was  ripening  steadily  into  a  genuine  pas- 
sion. Visits  took  place,  and  then  became  frequent. 
Clarinda's  friends  were  hurt  and  suspicious ;  her  clergy- 
man interfered ;  she  herself  had  smart  attacks  of  con- 
science ;  but  her  heart  had  gone  from  her  control ;  it  was 
altogether  his,  and  she  "  counted  all  things  but  loss  — 
heaven  excepted  —  that  she  might  win  and  keep  him." 
Burns  himself  was  transported  while  in  her  neighbour- 
hood, but  his  transports  somewhat  rapidly  declined 
during  an  absence.  I  am  tempted  to  imagine  that, 
womanlike,  he  took  on  the  colour  of  his  mistress's  feel- 
ing; that  he  could  not  but  heat  himself  at  the  fire  of  her 
unaffected  passion ;  but  that,  like  one  who  should  leave 
the  hearth  upon  a  winter's  night,  his  temperature  soon 
fell  when  he  was  out  of  sight,  and  in  a  word,  though  he 
could  share  the  symptoms,  that  he  had  never  shared  the 
disease.  At  the  same  time,  amid  the  fustian  of  the  let- 
ters there  are  forcible  and  true  expressions,  and  the  love 
verses  that  he  wrote  upon  Clarinda  are  among  the  most 
moving  in  the  language. 

We  are  approaching  the  solution.  In  mid-winter, 
Jean,  once  more  in  the  family  way,  was  turned  out  of 
doors  by  her  family;  and  Burns  had  her  received  and 
cared  for  in  the  house  of  a  friend.  For  he  remained  to 
the  last  imperfect  in  his  character  of  Don  Juan,  and  lacked 
the  sinister  courage  to  desert  his  victim.     About  the 

69 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

middle  of  February  (1788),  he  had  to  tear  himself  from 
his  Clarinda  and  make  a  journey  into  the  southwest  on 
business.  Clarinda  gave  him  two  shirts  for  his  little 
son.  They  were  daily  to  meet  in  prayer  at  an  appointed 
hour.  Burns,  too  late  for  the  post  at  Glasgow,  sent  her 
a  letter  by  parcel  that  she  might  not  have  to  wait. 
Clarinda  on  her  part  writes,  this  time  with  a  beautiful 
simplicity:  ''  I  think  the  streets  look  deserted-like  since 
Monday ;  and  there's  a  certain  insipidity  in  good  kind 
folks  I  once  enjoyed  not  a  little.  Miss  Wardrobe  supped 
here  on  Monday.  She  once  named  you,  which  kept  me 
from  falling  asleep.  I  drank  your  health  in  a  glass  of 
ale  —  as  the  lasses  do  at  Hallowe'en — *  in  to  mysel'.'  " 
Arrived  at  Mauchline,  Burns  installed  Jean  Armour  in  a 
lodging,  and  prevailed  on  Mrs.  Armour  to  promise  her 
help  and  countenance  in  the  approaching  confinement. 
This  was  kind  at  least;  but  hear  his  expressions:  '*I 
have  taken  her  a  room ;  I  have  taken  her  to  my  arms;  I 
have  given  her  a  mahogany  bed;  I  have  given  her  a 
guinea.  ...  I  swore  her  privately  and  solemnly  never 
to  attempt  any  claim  on  me  as  a  husband,  even  though 
anybody  should  persuade  her  she  had  such  a  claim  — 
which  she  has  not,  neither  during  my  life  nor  after  my 
death.  She  did  all  this  like  a  good  girl."  And  then  he 
took  advantage  of  the  situation.  To  Clarinda  he  wrote : 
"  I  this  morning  called  for  a  certain  woman.  I  am  dis- 
gusted with  her;  I  cannot  endure  her; "  and  he  accused 
her  of  **  tasteless  insipidity,  vulgarity  of  soul,  and  mer- 
cenary fawning."  This  was  already  in  March;  by  the 
13th  of  that  month  he  was  back  in  Edinburgh.  On  the 
17th  he  wrote  to  Clarinda:  **Your  hopes,  your  fears, 
your  cares,  my  love,  are  mine;  so  don't  mind  them.     I 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT  BURNS 

will  take  you  in  my  hand  through  the  dreary  wilds  of 
this  world,  and  scare  away  the  ravening  bird  or  beast 
that  would  annoy  you."  Again,  on  the  21st:  ''Will 
you  open,  with  satisfaction  and  delight,  a  letter  from  a 
man  who  loves  you,  who  has  loved  you,  and  who  will 
love  you,  to  death,  through  death,  and  for  ever.  .  .  . 
How  rich  am  1  to  have  such  a  treasure  as  you!  .  .  . 
*  The  Lord  God  knoweth,'  and,  perhaps,  '  Israel  he  shall 
know,'  my  love  and  your  merit.  Adieu,  Clarinda!  I  am 
going  to  remember  you  in  my  prayers."  By  the  7th  of 
April,  seventeen  days  later,  he  had  already  decided  to 
make  Jean  Armour  publicly  his  wife. 

A  more  astonishing  stage-trick  is  not  to  be  found. 
And  yet  his  conduct  is  seen,  upon  a  nearer  examination, 
to  be  grounded  both  in  reason  and  in  kindness.  He  was 
now  about  to  embark  on  a  solid  worldly  career;  he  had 
taken  a  farm ;  the  affair  with  Clarinda,  however  grati- 
fying to  his  heart,  was  too  contingent  to  offer  any  great 
consolation  to  a  man  like  Burns,  to  whom  marriage  must 
have  seemed  the  very  dawn  of  hope  and  self-respect. 
This  is  to  regard  the  question  from  its  lowest  aspect; 
but  there  is  no  doubt  that  he  entered  on  this  new 
period  of  his  life  with  a  sincere  determination  to  do 
right.  He  had  just  helped  his  brother  with  a  loan  of  a 
hundred  and  eighty  pounds ;  should  he  do  nothing  for 
the  poor  girl  whom  he  had  ruined  ?  It  was  true  he 
could  not  do  as  he  did  without  brutally  wounding  Cla- 
rinda; that  was  the  punishment  of  his  bygone  fault;  he 
was,  as  he  truly  says,  ''damned  with  a  choice  only  of 
different  species  of  error  and  misconduct."  To  be  pro- 
fessional Don  Juan,  to  accept  the  provocation  of  any 
lively  lass  upon  the  village  green,  may  thus  lead  a  man 

7» 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

through  a  series  of  detestable  words  and  actions,  and 
land  him  at  last  in  an  undesired  and  most  unsuitable 
union  for  life.  If  he  had  been  strong  enough  to  refrain 
or  bad  enough  to  persevere  in  evil;  if  he  had  only  not 
been  Don  Juan  at  all,  or  been  Don  Juan  altogether,  there 
had  been  some  possible  road  for  him  throughout  this 
troublesome  world;  but  a  man,  alas!  who  is  equally  at 
the  call  of  his  worse  and  better  instincts,  stands  among 
changing  events  without  foundation  or  resource. ^ 

DOWNWARD   COURSE 

It  may  be  questionable  whether  any  marriage  could 
have  tamed  Burns;  but  it  is  at  least  certain  that  there 
was  no  hope  for  him  in  the  marriage  he  contracted.  He 
did  right,  but  then  he  had  done  wrong  before ;  it  was, 
as  I  said,  one  of  those  relations  in  life  which  it  seems 
equally  wrong  to  break  or  to  perpetuate.  He  neither 
loved  nor  respected  his  wife.  ''  God  knows,"  he  writes, 
*' my  choice  was  as  random  as  blind  man's  buff."  He 
consoles  himself  by  the  thought  that  he  has  acted  kindly 
to  her;  that  she  **  has  the  most  sacred  enthusiasm  of 
attachment  to  him;"  that  she  has  a  good  figure;  that 
she  has  a  '*  wood-note  wild,"  "her  voice  rising  with 
ease  to  B  natural,"  no  less.  The  effect  on  the  reader  is 
one  of  unmingled  pity  for  both  parties  concerned.  This 
was  not  the  wife  who  (in  his  own  words)  could  "enter 
into  his  favourite  studies  or  relish  his  favourite  authors; " 
this  was  not  even  a  wife,  after  the  affair  of  the  marriage 
lines,  in  whom  a  husband  could  joy  to  place  his  trust. 

1  For  the  love  affairs  see,  in  particular,  Mr.  Scott  Douglas's  edition 
under  the  different  dates. 

72 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

Let  her  manage  a  farm  with  sense,  let  her  voice  rise  to 
B  natural  all  day  long,  she  would  still  be  a  peasant  to 
her  lettered  lord,  and  an  object  of  pity  rather  than  of 
equal  affection.  She  could  now  be  faithful,  she  could 
now  be  forgiving,  she  could  now  be  generous  even  to 
a  pathetic  and  touching  degree;  but  coming  from  one 
who  was  unloved,  and  who  had  scarce  shown  herself 
worthy  of  the  sentiment,  these  were  all  virtues  thrown 
away,  which  could  neither  change  her  husband's  heart 
nor  affect  the  inherent  destiny  of  their  relation.  From 
the  outset,  it  was  a  marriage  that  had  no  root  in  nature; 
and  we  find  him,  erelong,  lyrically  regretting  Highland 
Mary,  renewing  correspondence  with  Clarinda  in  the 
warmest  language,  on  doubtful  terms  with  Mrs.  Riddel, 
and  on  terms  unfortunately  beyond  any  question  with 
Anne  Park. 

Alas!  this  was  not  the  only  ill  circumstance  in  his 
future.  He  had  been  idle  for  some  eighteen  months, 
superintending  his  new  edition,  hanging  on  to  settle 
with  the  publisher,  travelling  in  the  Highlands  with 
Willie  Nichol,  or  philandering  with  Mrs.  M'Lehose; 
and  in  this  period  the  radical  part  of  the  man  had  suf- 
fered irremediable  hurt.  He  had  lost  his  habits  of  in- 
dustry, and  formed  the  habit  of  pleasure.  Apologet- 
ical  biographers  assure  us  of  the  contrary ;  but  from  the 
first,  he  saw  and  recognised  the  danger  for  himself;  his 
mind,  he  writes,  is  ** enervated  to  an  alarming  degree" 
by  idleness  and  dissipation;  and  again,  "my  mind  has 
been  vitiated  with  idleness."  It  never  fairly  recovered. 
To  business  he  could  bring  the  required  diligence  and 
attention  without  difficulty ;  but  he  was  thenceforward 
incapable,  except  in   rare  instances,  of  that  superior 

73 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

effort  of  concentration  which  is  required  for  serious  lit- 
erary work.  He  may  be  said,  indeed,  to  have  worked 
no  more,  and  only  amused  himself  with  letters.  The 
man  who  had  written  a  volume  of  masterpieces  in  six 
months,  during  the  remainder  of  his  life  rarely  found 
courage  for  any  more  sustained  effort  than  a  song. 
And  the  nature  of  the  songs  is  itself  characteristic  of 
these  idle  later  years ;  for  they  are  often  as  polished  and 
elaborate  as  his  earlier  works  were  frank,  and  headlong, 
and  colloquial;  and  this  sort  of  verbal  elaboration  in 
short  flights  is,  for  a  man  of  literary  turn,  simply  the 
most  agreeable  of  pastimes.  The  change  in  manner  co- 
incides exactly  with  the  Edinburgh  visit.  In  1786  he 
had  written  the  Address  to  a  LomCy  which  may  be 
taken  as  an  extreme  instance  of  the  first  manner;  and 
already,  in  1787,  we  come  upon  the  rosebud  pieces  to 
Miss  Cruikshank,  which  are  extreme  examples  of  the 
second.  The  change  was,  therefore,  the  direct  and 
very  natural  consequence  of  his  great  change  in  life; 
but  it  is  not  the  less  typical  of  his  loss  of  moral  courage 
that  he  should  have  given  up  all  larger  ventures,  nor  the 
less  melancholy  that  a  man  who  first  attacked  literature 
with  a  hand  that  seemed  capable  of  moving  mountains, 
should  have  spent  his  later  years  in  whittling  cherry- 
stones. 

Meanwhile,  the  farm  did  not  prosper;  he  had  to  join 
to  it  the  salary  of  an  exciseman ;  at  last  he  had  to  give 
it  up,  and  rely  altogether  on  the  latter  resource.  He 
was  an  active  officer;  and,  though  he  sometimes  tem- 
pered severity  with  mercy,  we  have  local  testimony 
oddly  representing  the  public  feeling  of  the  period,  that, 
while  **  in  everything  else  he  was  a  perfect  gentleman, 

74 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 

when  he  met  with  anything  seizable  he  was  no  better 
than  any  other  gauger." 

There  is  but  one  manifestation  of  the  man  in  these 
last  years  which  need  delay  us :  and  that  was  the  sud- 
den interest  in  politics  which  arose  from  his  sympathy 
with  the  great  French  Revolution.  His  only  political 
feeling  had  been  hitherto  a  sentimental  Jacobitism,  not 
more  or  less  respectable  than  that  of  Scott,  Aytoun,  and 
the  rest  of  what  George  Borrow  has  nicknamed  the 
"  Charlie  over  the  water"  Scotchmen.  It  was  a  senti- 
ment almost  entirely  literary  and  picturesque  in  its 
origin,  built  on  ballads  and  the  adventures  of  the  Young 
Chevalier;  and  in  Burns  it  is  the  more  excusable,  be- 
cause he  lay  out  of  the  way  of  active  politics  in  his 
youth.  With  the  great  French  Revolution,  something 
living,  practical,  and  feasible  appeared  to  him  for  the 
first  time  in  this  realm  of  human  action.  The  young 
ploughman  who  had  desired  so  earnestly  to  rise,  now 
reached  out  his  sympathies  to  a  whole  nation  animated 
with  the  same  desire.  Already  in  1788  we  find  the  old 
Jacobitism  hand  in  hand  with  the  new  popular  doctrine, 
when,  in  a  letter  of  indignation  against  the  zeal  of  a 
Whig  clergyman,  he  writes:  "  I  dare  say  the  American 
Congress  in  1776  will  be  allowed  to  be  as  able  and  as 
enlightened  as  the  English  Convention  was  in  1688; 
and  that  their  posterity  will  celebrate  the  centenary  of 
their  deliverance  from  us  as  duly  and  sincerely  as  we 
do.  ours  from  the  oppressive  measures  of  the  wrong- 
headed  house  of  Stuart."  As  time  wore  on,  his  senti- 
ments grew  more  pronounced  and  even  violent;  but 
there  was  a  basis  of  sense  and  generous  feeling  to  his 
hottest  excess.     What  he  asked  was  a  fair  chance  for 

75 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

the  individual  in  life;  an  open  road  to  success  and  dis- 
tinction for  all  classes  of  men.  It  was  in  the  same 
spirit  that  he  had  helped  to  found  a  public  library  in  the 
parish  where  his  farm  was  situated,  and  that  he  sang 
his  fervent  snatches  against  tyranny  and  tyrants.  Wit- 
ness, were  it  alone,  this  verse : — 

"Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  read, 
Here's  freedom  to  him  that  wad  write; 
There's  nane  ever  feared  that  the  truth  should  be  heard 
But  them  wham  the  truth  wad  indite." 

Yet  his  enthusiasm  for  the  cause  was  scarce  guided  by 
wisdom.  Many  stories  are  preserved  of  the  bitter  and 
unwise  words  he  used  in  country  coteries;  how  he 
proposed  Washington's  health  as  an  amendment  to 
Pitt's,  gave  as  a  toast  **the  last  verse  of  the  last  chap- 
ter of  Kings,"  and  celebrated  Dumouriez  in  a  doggrel 
impromptu  full  of  ridicule  and  hate.  Now  his  sympa- 
thies would  inspire  him  with  Scots,  wha  hae  ;  now  in- 
volve him  in  a  drunken  broil  with  a  loyal  officer,  and 
consequent  apologies  and  explanations,  hard  to  offer  for 
a  man  of  Burns's  stomach.  Nor  was  this  the  front  of 
his  offending.  On  February  27,  1792,  he  took  part  in 
the  capture  of  an  armed  smuggler,  bought  at  the  sub- 
sequent sale  four  carronades,  and  despatched  them  with 
a  letter  to  the  French  Assembly.  Letter  and  guns  were 
stopped  at  Dover  by  the  English  officials;  there  was 
trouble  for  Burns  with  his  superiors ;  he  was  reminded 
firmly,  however  delicately,  that,  as  a  paid  official,  it  was 
his  duty  to  obey  and  to  be  silent;  and  all  the  blood  of 
this  poor,  proud,  and  falling  man  must  have  rushed  to 
his  head  at  the  humiliation.     His  letter  to  Mr.  Erskine, 

76 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT   BURNS 

subsequently  Earl  of  Mar,  testifies,  in  its  turgid,  turbu- 
lent phrases,  to  a  perfect  passion  of  alarmed  self-respect 
and  vanity.  He  had  been  muzzled,  and  muzzled,  when 
all  was  said,  by  his  paltry  salary  as  an  exciseman ;  alas ! 
had  he  not  a  family  to  keep  ?  Already,  he  wrote,  he 
looked  forward  to  some  such  judgment  from  a  hackney 
scribbler  as  this:  "  Burns,  notwithstanding  the  fanfar- 
onnade  of  independence  to  be  found  in  his  works,  and 
after  having  been  held  forth  to  view  and  to  public  esti- 
mation as  a  man  of  some  genius,  yet,  quite  destitute  of 
resources  within  himself  to  support  his  borrowed  dig- 
nity, he  dwindled  into  a  paltry  exciseman,  and  shrunk 
out  the  rest  of  his  insignificant  existence  in  the  meanest 
of  pursuits,  and  among  the  vilest  of  mankind."  And 
then  on  he  goes,  in  a  style  of  rhodomontade,  but  filled 
with  living  indignation,  to  declare  his  right  to  a  political 
opinion,  and  his  willingness  to  shed  his  blood  for  the 
political  birthright  of  his  sons.  Poor,  perturbed  spirit! 
he  was  indeed  exercised  in  vain ;  those  who  share  and 
those  who  differ  from  his  sentiments  about  the  Revolu- 
tion, alike  understand  and  sympathise  with  him  in  this 
painful  strait ;  for  poetry  and  human  manhood  are  last- 
ing like  the  race,  and  politics,  which  are  but  a  wrong- 
ful striving  after  right,  pass  and  change  from  year  to 
year  and  age  to  age.  The  Twa  Dogs  has  already  out- 
lasted the  constitution  of  Sieyes  and  the  policy  of  the 
Whigs;  and  Burns  is  better  known  among  English- 
speaking  races  than  either  Pitt  or  Fox. 

Meanwhile,  whether  as  a  man,  a  husband,  or  a  poet, 
his  steps  led  downward.  He  knew,  knew  bitterly,  that 
the  best  was  out  of  him ;  he  refused  to  make  another 
volume,  for  he  felt  that  it  would  be  a  disappointment; 

77 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

he  grew  petulantly  alive  to  criticism,  unless  he  was  sure 
it  reached  him  from  a  friend.  For  his  songs,  he  would 
take  nothing;  they  were  all  that  he  could  do;  the  pro- 
posed Scotch  play,  the  proposed  series  of  Scotch  tales 
in  verse,  all  had  gone  to  water;  and  in  a  fling  of  pain  and 
disappointment,  which  is  surely  noble  with  the  nobility 
of  a  viking,  he  would  rather  stoop  to  borrow  than  to 
accept  money  for  these  last  and  inadequate  efforts  of  his 
muse.  And  this  desperate  abnegation  rises  at  times 
near  to  the  height  of  madness;  as  when  he  pretended 
that  he  had  not  written,  but  only  found  and  published, 
his  immortal  Auld  Lang  Syne.  In  the  same  spirit  he 
became  more  scrupulous  as  an  artist;  he  was  doing  so 
little,  he  would  fain  do  that  little  well ;  and  about  two 
months  before  his  death,  he  asked  Thomson  to  send 
back  all  his  manuscripts  for  revisal,  saying  that  he  would 
rather  write  five  songs  to  his  taste  than  twice  that  num- 
ber otherwise.  The  battle  of  his  life  was  lost;  in  for- 
lorn efforts  to  do  well,  in  desperate  submissions  to  evil, 
the  last  years  flew  by.  His  temper  is  dark  and  explo- 
sive, launching  epigrams,  quarrelling  with  his  friends, 
jealous  of  young  puppy  officers.  He  tries  to  be  a  good 
father;  he  boasts  himself  a  libertine.  Sick,  sad,  and 
jaded,  he  can  refuse  no  occasion  of  temporary  pleasure, 
no  opportunity  to  shine ;  and  he  who  had  once  refused 
the  invitations  of  lords  and  ladies  is  now  whistled  to 
the  inn  by  any  curious  stranger.  His  death  (July  21, 
1796),  in  his  thirty-seventh  year,  was  indeed  a  kindly 
dispensation.  It  is  the  fashion  to  say  he  died  of  drink; 
many  a  man  has  drunk  more  and  yet  lived  with  repu- 
tation, and  reached  a  good  age.  That  drink  and  de- 
bauchery helped  to  destroy  his  constitution,  and  were 

78 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT   BURNS 

the  means  of  his  unconscious  suicide,  is  doubtless  true; 
but  he  had  failed  in  life,  had  lost  his  power  of  work, 
and  was  already  married  to  the  poor,  unworthy,  patient 
Jean,  before  he  had  shown  his  inclination  to  convivial 
nights,  or  at  least  before  that  inclination  had  become 
dangerous  either  to  his  health  or  his  self-respect.  He 
had  trifled  with  life,  and  must  pay  the  penalty.  He  had 
chosen  to  be  Don  Juan,  he  had  grasped  at  temporary 
pleasures,  and  substantial  happiness  and  solid  industry 
had  passed  him  by.  He  died  of  being  Robert  Burns, 
and  there  is  no  levity  in  such  a  statement  of  the  case; 
for  shall  we  not,  one  and  all,  deserve  a  similar  epitaph  ? 

WORKS 

The  somewhat  cruel  necessity  which  has  Iain  upon 
me  throughout  this  paper  only  to  touch  upon  those 
points  in  the  life  of  Burns  where  correction  or  amplifica- 
tion seemed  desirable,  leaves  me  little  opportunity  to 
speak  of  the  works  which  have  made  his  name  so 
famous.  Yet,  even  here,  a  few  observations  seem  nec- 
essary. 

At  the  time  when  the  poet  made  his  appearance  and 
great  first  success,  his  work  was  remarkable  in  two 
ways.  For,  first,  in  an  age  when  poetry  had  become 
abstract  and  conventional,  instead  of  continuing  to  deal 
with  shepherds,  thunderstorms,  and  personifications,  he 
dealt  with  the  actual  circumstances  of  his  life,  however 
matter-of-fact  and  sordid  these  might  be.  And,  second, 
in  a  time  when  English  versification  was  particularly 
stiff,  lame,  and  feeble,  and  words  were  used  with  ultra- 
academical  timidity,  he  wrote  verses  that  were  easy, 

79 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

racy,  graphic,  and  forcible,  and  used  language  with  ab* 
solute  tact  and  courage  as  it  seemed  most  fit  to  give  a 
clear  impression.  If  you  take  even  those  English  authors 
whom  we  know  Burns  to  have  most  admired  and 
studied,  you  will  see  at  once  that  he  owed  them  noth- 
ing but  a  warning.  Take  Shenstone,  for  instance,  and 
watch  that  elegant  author  as  he  tries  to  grapple  with  the 
facts  of  life.  He  has  a  description,  I  remember,  of  a 
gentleman  engaged  in  sliding  or  walking  on  thin  ice, 
which  is  a  little  miracle  of  incompetence.  You  see  my 
memory  fails  me,  and  I  positively  cannot  recollect 
whether  his  hero  was  sliding  or  walking;  as  though  a 
writer  should  describe  a  skirmish,  and  the  reader,  at  the 
end,  be  still  uncertain  whether  it  were  a  charge  of 
cavalry  or  a  slow  and  stubborn  advance  of  foot.  There 
could  be  no  such  ambiguity  in  Burns ;  his  work  is  at 
the  opposite  pole  from  such  indefinite  and  stammering 
performances ;  and  a  whole  lifetime  passed  in  the  study  of 
Shenstone  would  only  lead  a  man  farther  and  farther  from 
writing  the  Address  to  a  Lome.  Yet  Burns,  like  most 
great  artists,  proceeded  from  a  school  and  continued  a 
tradition;  only  the  school  and  tradition  were  Scotch, 
and  not  English.  While  the  English  language  was  be- 
coming daily  more  pedantic  and  inflexible,  and  English 
letters  more  colourless  and  slack,  there  was  another 
dialect  in  the  sister  country,  and  a  different  school  of 
poetry  tracing  its  descent,  through  King  James  I.,  from 
Chaucer.  The  dialect  alone  accounts  for  much ;  for  it  was 
then  written  colloquially,  which  kept  it  fresh  and  sup- 
ple; and,  although  not  shaped  for  heroic  flights,  it  was 
a  direct  and  vivid  medium  for  all  that  had  to  do  with 
social  life.     Hence,  whenever  Scotch  poets  left  their 

80 


SOME   ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT   BURNS 

laborious  imitations  of  bad  English  verses,  and  fell  back 
on  their  own  dialect,  their  style  would  kindle,  and  they 
would  write  of  their  convivial  and  somewhat  gross  ex- 
istences with  pith  and  point.  In  Ramsay,  and  far  more 
in  the  poor  lad  Fergusson,  there  was  mettle,  humour, 
literary  courage,  and  a  power  of  saying  what  they 
wished  to  say  definitely  and  brightly,  which  in  the  latter 
case  should  have  justified  great  anticipations.  Had 
Burns  died  at  the  same  age  as  Fergusson,  he  would  have 
left  us  literally  nothing  worth  remark.  To  Ramsay 
and  to  Fergusson,  then,  he  was  indebted  in  a  very  un- 
common degree,  not  only  following  their  tradition  and 
using  their  measures,  but  directly  and  avowedly  imi- 
tating their  pieces.  The  same  tendency  to  borrow  a 
hint,  to  work  on  some  one  else's  foundation,  is  nota- 
ble in  Burns  from  first  to  last,  in  the  period  of  song- 
writing  as  well  as  in  that  of  the  early  poems ;  and  strikes 
one  oddly  in  a  man  of  such  deep  originality,  who  left  so 
strong  a  print  on  all  he  touched,  and  whose  work  is  so 
greatly  distinguished  by  that  character  of  "  inevitability  " 
which  Wordsworth  denied  to  Goethe. 

When  we  remember  Burns's  obligations  to  his  pre- 
decessors, we  must  never  forget  his  immense  advances 
on  them.  They  had  already  "discovered"  nature; 
but  Burns  discovered  poetry  —  a  higher  and  more  in- 
tense way  of  thinking  of  the  things  that  go  to  make  up 
nature,  a  higher  and  more  ideal  key  of  words  in  which 
to  speak  of  them.  Ramsay  and  Fergusson  excelled  at 
making  a  popular  —  or  shall  we  say  vulgar.^  —  sort  of 
society  verses,  comical  and  prosaic,  written,  you  would 
say,  in  taverns  while  a  supper  party  waited  for  its  lau- 
reate's word ;  but  on  the  appearance  of  Burns,  this  coarse 

8i 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

and  laughing  literature  was  touched  to  finer  issues,  and 
learned  gravity  of  thought  and  natural  pathos. 

What  he  had  gained  from  his  predecessors  was  a  di- 
rect, speaking  style,  and  to  walk  on  his  own  feet  in- 
stead of  on  academical  stilts.  There  was  never  a  man 
of  letters  with  more  absolute  command  of  his  means; 
and  we  may  say  of  him,  without  excess,  that  his  style 
was  his  slave.  Hence  that  energy  of  epithet,  so  con- 
cise and  telling,  that  a  foreigner  is  tempted  to  explain  it 
by  some  special  richness  or  aptitude  in  the  dialect  he 
wrote.  Hence  that  Homeric  justice  and  completeness 
of  description  which  gives  us  the  very  physiognomy  of 
nature,  in  body  and  detail,  as  nature  is.  Hence,  too, 
the  unbroken  literary  quality  of  his  best  pieces,  which 
keeps  him  from  any  slip  into  the  weariful  trade  of  word- 
painting,  and  presents  everything,  as  everything  should 
be  presented  by  the  art  of  words,  in  a  clear,  continuous 
medium  of  thought.  Principal  Shairp,  for  instance, 
gives  us  a  paraphrase  of  one  tough  verse  of  the  original; 
and  for  those  who  know  the  Greek  poets  only  by  para- 
phrase, this  has  the  very  quality  they  are  accustomed  to 
look  for  and  admire  in  Greek.  The  contemporaries  of 
Burns  were  surprised  that  he  should  visit  so  many  cele- 
brated mountains  and  waterfalls,  and  not  seize  the  op- 
portunity to  make  a  poem.  Indeed,  it  is  not  for  those 
who  have  a  true  command  of  the  art  of  words,  but  for 
peddling,  professional  amateurs,  that  these  pointed  oc- 
casions are  most  useful  and  inspiring.  As  those  who 
speak  French  imperfectly  are  glad  to  dwell  on  any  topic 
they  may  have  talked  upon  or  heard  others  talk  upon 
before,  because  they  know  appropriate  words  for  it  in 
French,  so  the  dabbler  in  verse  rejoices  to  behold  a 

8a 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF   ROBERT   BURNS 

waterfall,  because  he  has  learned  the  sentiment  and 
knows  appropriate  words  for  it  in  poetry.  But  the 
dialect  of  Burns  was  fitted  to  deal  with  any  subject;  and 
whether  it  was  a  stormy  night,  a  shepherd's  collie,  a 
sheep  struggling  in  the  snow,  the  conduct  of  cowardly 
soldiers  in  the  field,  the  gait  and  cogitations  of  a  drunk- 
en man,  or  only  a  village  cockcrow  in  the  morning,  he 
could  find  language  to  give  it  freshness,  body,  and  re- 
lief He  was  always  ready  to  borrow  the  hint  of  a  de- 
sign, as  though  he  had  a  difficulty  in  commencing  — 
a  difficulty,  let  us  say,  in  choosing  a  subject  out  of  a 
world  which  seemed  all  equally  living  and  significant 
to  him ;  but  once  he  had  the  subject  chosen,  he  could 
cope  with  nature  single-handed,  and  make  every  stroke 
a  triumph.  Again,  his  absolute  mastery  in  his  art  en- 
abled him  to  express  each  and  all  of  his  different  hu- 
mours, and  to  pass  smoothly  and  congruously  from  one 
to  another.  Many  men  invent  a  dialect  for  only  one 
side  of  their  nature  —  perhaps  their  pathos  or  their  hu- 
mour, or  the  delicacy  of  their  senses  —  and,  for  lack  of 
a  medium,  leave  all  the  others  unexpressed.  You  meet 
such  an  one,  and  find  him  in  conversation  full  of  thought, 
feeling,  and  experience,  which  he  has  lacked  the  art  to 
employ  in  his  writings.  But  Burns  was  not  thus  ham- 
pered in  the  practice  of  the  literary  art ;  he  could  throw 
the  whole  weight  of  his  nature  into  his  work,  and  im- 
pregnate it  from  end  to  end.  If  Doctor  Johnson,  that 
stilted  and  accomplished  stylist,  had  lacked  the  sacred 
Boswell,  what  should  we  have  known  of  him  ?  and  how 
should  we  have  delighted  in  his  acquaintance  as  we  do  ? 
Those  who  spoke  with  Burns  tell  us  how  much  we 
have  lost  who  did  not.    But  I  think  they  exaggerate  their 

83 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

privilege:  I  think  we  have  the  whole  Burns  in  our  pos- 
session set  forth  in  his  consummate  verses. 

It  was  by  his  style,  and  not  by  his  matter,  that  he 
affected  Wordsworth  and  the  world,  There  is,  indeed, 
only  one  merit  worth  considering  in  a  man  of  letters  — 
that  he  should  write  well  ;  and  only  one  damning  fault 
—  that  he  should  write  ill.  We  are  little  the  better  for 
the  reflections  of  the  sailor's  parrot  in  the  story.  And 
so,  if  Burns  helped  to  change  the  course  of  literary  his- 
tory, it  was  by  his  frank,  direct,  and  masterly  utterance, 
and  not  by  his  homely  choice  of  subjects.  That  was 
imposed  upon  him,  not  chosen  upon  a  principle.  He 
wrote  from  his  own  experience,  because  it  was  his  na- 
ture so  to  do,  and  the  tradition  of  the  school  from  which 
he  proceeded  was  fortunately  not  opposed  to  homely 
subjects.  But  to  these  homely  subjects  he  communi- 
cated the  rich  commentary  of  his  nature;  they  were  all 
steeped  in  Burns ;  and  they  interest  us  not  in  themselves, 
but  because  they  have  been  passed  through  the  spirit 
of  so  genuine  and  vigorous  a  man.  Such  is  the  stamp 
of  living  literature ;  and  there  was  never  any  more  alive 
than  that  of  Burns. 

What  a  gust  of  sympathy  there  is  in  him  sometimes 
flowing  out  in  byways  hitherto  unused,  upon  mice,  and 
flowers,  and  the  devil  himself;  sometimes  speaking 
plainly  between  human  hearts ;  sometimes  ringing  out 
in  exultation  like  a  peal  of  bells!  When  we  compare 
the  Farmer's  Salutation  to  his  AuldMare  Maggie,  with 
the  clever  and  inhumane  production  of  half  a  century 
earlier.  The  Auld  Man's  Mare's  dead,  we  see  in  a  nut- 
shell the  spirit  of  the  change  introduced  by  Burns.  And 
as  to  its  manner,  who  that  "has  read  it  can  forget  how 

84 


SOME  ASPECTS  OF  ROBERT  BURNS 

the  collie,  Luath,  in  the  Twa  Dogs,  describes  and  enters 
into  the  merry-making  in  the  cottage  ? 

"  The  luntin'  pipe  an'  sneeshin'  mill, 
Are  handed  round  wi'  richt  guid  will; 
The  canty  auld  folks  crackin'  crouse, 
The  young  anes  rantin'  through  the  house  — 
My  heart  has  been  sae  fain  to  see  them 
That  I  for  joy  hae  barkit  wi'  them." 

It  was  this  ardent  power  of  sympathy  that  was  fatal  to 
so  many  women,  and,  through  Jean  Armour,  to  himself 
at  last.  His  humour  comes  from  him  in  a  stream  so  deep 
and  easy  that  1  will  venture  to  call  him  the  best  of 
humorous  poets.  He  turns  about  in  the  midst  to  utter 
a  noble  sentiment  or  a  trenchant  remark  on  human  life, 
and  the  style  changes  and  rises  to  the  occasion.  I  think 
it  is  Principal  Shairp  who  says,  happily,  that  Burns 
would  have  been  no  Scotchman  if  he  had  not  loved  to 
moralise;  neither,  may  we  add,  would  he  have  been  his 
father's  son ;  but  (what  is  worthy  of  note)  his  moralis- 
ings  are  to  a  large  extent  the  moral  of  his  own  career. 
He  was  among  the  least  impersonal  of  artists.  Except 
in  the  Jolly  Beggars,  he  shows  no  gleam  of  dramatic  in- 
stinct. Mr.  Carlyle  has  complained  that  Tarn  o'  Shanter 
is,  from  the  absence  of  this  quality,  only  a  picturesque 
and  external  piece  of  work ;  and  I  may  add  that  in  the 
Twa  Dogs  it  is  precisely  in  the  infringement  of  dramatic 
propriety  that  a  great  deal  of  the  humour  of  the  speeches 
depends  for  its  existence  and  effect.  Indeed,  Burns  was 
so  full  of  his  identity  that  it  breaks  forth  on  every  page ; 
and  there  is  scarce  an  appropriate  remark  either  in  praise 
or  blame  of  his  own  conduct,  but  he  has  put  it  himself 

85 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

into  verse.  Alas !  for  the  tenor  of  these  remarks !  They 
are,  indeed,  his  own  pitiful  apology  for  such  a  marred 
existence  and  talents  so  misused  and  stunted;  and  they 
seem  to  prove  forever  how  small  a  part  is  played  by 
reason  in  the  conduct  of  man's  affairs.  Here  was  one,  at 
least,  who  with  unfailing  judgment  predicted  his  own 
fate;  yet  his  knowledge  could  not  avail  him,  and  with 
open  eyes  he  must  fulfil  his  tragic  destiny.  Ten  years 
before  the  end  he  had  written  his  epitaph ;  and  neither 
subsequent  events,  nor  the  critical  eyes  of  posterity, 
have  shown  us  a  word  in  it  to  alter.  And,  lastly,  has 
he  not  put  in  for  himself  the  last  unanswerable  plea  ? — 

"  Then  gently  scan  your  brother  man, 
Still  gentler  sister  woman; 
Though  they  may  gang  a  kennin  wrang, 

To  step  aside  is  human : 
One  point  must  still  be  greatly  dark 

One?  Alas!  I  fear  every  man  and  woman  of  us  is 
''greatly  dark"  to  all  their  neighbours,  from  the  day  of 
birth  until  death  removes  them,  in  their  greatest  virtues 
as  well  as  in  their  saddest  faults;  and  we,  who  have 
been  trying  to  read  the  character  of  Burns,  may  take 
home  the  lesson  and  be  gentle  in  our  thoughts. 


86 


WALT    WHITMAN 

OF  late  years  the  name  of  Walt  Whitman  has  been  a 
good  deal  bandied  about  in  books  and  magazines. 
It  has  become  familiar  both  in  good  and  ill  repute.  His 
works  have  been  largely  bespattered  with  praise  by  his 
admirers,  and  cruelly  mauled  and  mangled  by  irreverent 
enemies.  Now,  whether  his  poetry  is  good  or  bad  as 
poetry,  is  a  matter  that  may  admit  of  a  difference  of 
opinion  without  alienating  those  who  differ.  We  could 
not  keep  the  peace  with  a  man  who  should  put  forward 
claims  to  taste  and  yet  depreciate  the  choruses  in  Sam- 
son Agonistes  ;  but,  I  think,  we  may  shake  hands  with 
one  who  sees  no  more  in  Walt  Whitman's  volume,  from 
a  literary  point  of  view,  than  a  farrago  of  incompetent 
essays  in  a  wrong  direction.  That  may  not  be  at  all  our 
own  opinion.  We  may  think  that,  when  a  work  con- 
tains many  unforgettable  phrases,  it  cannot  be  altogether 
devoid  of  literary  merit.  We  may  even  see  passages  of 
a  high  poetry  here  and  there  among  its  eccentric  con- 
tents. But  when  all  is  said,  Walt  Whitman  is  neither  a 
Milton  nor  a  Shakespeare ;  to  appreciate  his  works  is  not 
a  condition  necessary  to  salvation ;  and  I  would  not  dis- 
inherit a  son  upon  the  question,  nor  even  think  much 
the  worse  of  a  critic,  for  I  should  always  have  an  idea 
what  he  meant. 

87 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

What  Whitman  has  to  say  is  another  affair  from  how 
he  says  it.  It  is  not  possible  to  acquit  any  one  of  de- 
fective intelligence,  or  else  stiff  prejudice,  who  is  not  in- 
terested by  Whitman's  matter  and  the  spirit  it  repre- 
sents. Not  as  a  poet,  but  as  what  we  must  call  (for 
lack  of  a  more  exact  expression)  a  prophet,  he  occupies 
a  curious  and  prominent  position.  Whether  he  may 
greatly  influence  the  future  or  not,  he  is  a  notable  symp- 
tom of  the  present.  As  a  sign  of  the  times,  it  would  be 
hard  to  find  his  parallel.  I  should  hazard  a  large  wager, 
for  instance,  that  he  was  not  unacquainted  with  the 
works  of  Herbert  Spencer;  and  yet  where,  in  all  the  his- 
tory books,  shall  we  lay  our  hands  on  two  more  incon- 
gruous contemporaries.?  Mr.  Spencer  so  decorous  —  I 
had  almost  said,  so  dandy  —  in  dissent;  and  Whitman, 
like  a  large  shaggy  dog,  just  unchained,  scouring  the 
beaches  of  the  world  and  baying  at  the  moon.  And 
when  was  an  echo  more  curiously  like  a  satire,  than 
when  Mr.  Spencer  found  his  Synthetic  Philosophy  re- 
verberated from  the  other  shores  of  the  Atlantic  in  the 
*'  barbaric  yawp  "  of  Whitman  ? 


Whitman,  it  cannot  be  too  soon  explained,  writes  up 
to  a  system.  He  was  a  theoriser  about  society  before 
he  was  a  poet.  He  first  perceived  something  wanting, 
and  then  sat  down  squarely  to  supply  the  want.^  The 
reader,  running  over  his  works,  will  find  that  he  takes 
nearly  as  much  pleasure  in  critically  expounding  his 
theory  of  poetry  as  in  making  poems.  This  is  as  fiir  as 
it  can  be  from  the  case  of  the  spontaneous  village  min- 

88 


WALT   WHITMAN 

strel  dear  to  elegy,  who  has  no  theory  whatever,  al- 
though sometimes  he  may  have  fully  as  much  poetry  as 
Whitman.  The  whole  of  Whitman's  work  is  deliber- 
ate and  preconceived.  A  man  born  into  a  society  com- 
paratively new,  full  of  conflicting  elements  and  interests, 
could  not  fail,  if  he  had  any  thoughts  at  all,  to  reflect 
upon  the  tendencies  around  him.  He  saw  much  good 
and  evil  on  all  sides,  not  yet  settled  down  into  some 
more  or  less  unjust  compromise  as  in  older  nations,  but 
still  in  the  act  of  settlement.  And  he  could  not  but 
wonder  what  it  would  turn  out;  whether  the  compro- 
mise would  be  very  just  or  very  much  the  reverse,  and 
give  great  or  little  scope  for  healthy  human  energies. 
From  idle  wonder  to  active  speculation  is  but  a  step ; 
and  he  seems  to  have  been  early  struck  with  the  ineffi- 
cacy  of  literature  and  its  extreme  unsuitability  to  the 
conditions.  What  he  calls  ''Feudal  Literature"  could 
have  little  living  action  on  the  tumult  of  American  de- 
mocracy; what  he  calls  the  ''Literature  of  Woe,"  mean- 
ing the  whole  tribe  of  Werther  and  Byron,  could  have 
no  action  for  good  in  any  time  or  place.  Both  proposi- 
tions, if  art  had  none  but  a  direct  moral  influence,  would 
be  true  enough;  and  as  this  seems  to  be  Whitman's 
view,  they  were  true  enough  for  him.  He  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  Literature  which  was  to  inhere  in  the  life 
of  the  present;  which  was  to  be,  first,  human,  and  next, 
American;  which  was  to  be  brave  and  cheerful  as 
per  contract;  to  give  culture  in  a  popular  and  poetical 
presentment;  and,  in  so  doing,  catch  and  stereotype 
some  democratic  ideal  of  humanity  which  should  be 
equally  natural  to  all  grades  of  wealth  and  education, 
and  suited,  in  one  of  his  favourite  phrases,  to  "the  av- 

89 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

erage  man."  To  the  formation  of  some  such  literature 
as  this  his  poems  are  to  be  regarded  as  so  many  contri- 
butions, one  sometimes  explaining,  sometimes  super- 
seding, the  other:  and  the  whole  together  not  so  much 
a  finished  work  as  a  body  of  suggestive  hints.  He  does 
not  profess  to  have  built  the  castle,  but  he  pretends  he 
has  traced  the  lines  of  the  foundation.  He  has  not  made 
the  poetry,  but  he  flatters  himself  he  has  done  some- 
thing toward  making  the  poets. 

His  notion  of  the  poetic  function  is  ambitious,  and 
coincides  roughly  with  what  Schopenhauer  has  laid 
down  as  the  province  of  the  metaphysician.  The  poet 
is  to  gather  together  for  men,  and  set  in  order,  the  ma- 
terials of  their  existence.  He  is  "The  Answerer; "  he 
is  to  find  some  way  of  speaking  about  life  that  shall  sat- 
isfy, if  only  for  the  moment,  man's  enduring  astonish- 
ment at  his  own  position.  And  besides  having  an  an- 
swer ready,  it  is  he  who  shall  provoke  the  question. 
He  must  shake  people  out  of  their  indifference,  and  force 
them  to  make  some  election  in  this  world,  instead  of 
sliding  dully  forward  in  a  dream.  Life  is  a  business  we 
are  all  apt  to  mismanage ;  either  living  recklessly  from 
day  to  day,  or  suffering  ourselves  to  be  gulled  out  of  our 
moments  by  the  inanities  of  custom.  We  should  de- 
spise a  man  who  gave  as  little  activity  and  forethought 
to  the  conduct  of  any  other  business.  But  in  this,  which 
is  the  one  thing  of  all  others,  since  it  contains  them  all, 
we  cannot  see  the  forest  for  the  trees.  One  brief  im- 
pression obliterates  another.  There  is  something  stupe- 
fying in  the  recurrence  of  unimportant  things.  And  it  is 
only  on  rare  provocations  that  we  can  rise  to  take  an 
outlook  beyond  daily  concerns,  and  comprehend  the 

90 


WALT  WHITMAN 

narrow  limits  and  great  possibilities  of  our  existence. 
It  is  the  duty  of  the  poet  to  induce  such  moments  of 
clear  sight.  He  is  the  declared  enemy  of  all  living  by 
reflex  action,  of  all  that  is  done  betwixt  sleep  and  wak- 
ing, of  all  the  pleasureless  pleasurings  and  imaginary 
duties  in  which  we  coin  away  our  hearts  and  fritter  in- 
valuable years.  He  has  to  electrify  his  readers  into  an 
instant  unflagging  activity,  founded  on  a  wide  and  eager 
observation  of  the  world,  and  make  them  direct  their 
ways  by  a  superior  prudence,  which  has  little  or  nothing 
in  common  with  the  maxims  of  the  copy-book.  That 
many  of  us  lead  such  lives  as  they  would  heartily  dis- 
own after  two  hours'  serious  reflection  on  the  subject  is, 
I  am  afraid,  a  true,  and,  I  am  sure,  a  very  galling  thought. 
The  Enchanted  Ground  of  dead-alive  respectability  is 
next,  upon  the  map,  to  the  Beulah  of  considerate  virtue. 
But  there  they  all  slumber  and  take  their  rest  in  the 
middle  of  God's  beautiful  and  wonderful  universe;  the 
drowsy  heads  have  nodded  together  in  the  same  posi- 
tion since  first  their  fathers  fell  asleep ;  and  not  even  the 
sound  of  the  last  trumpet  can  wake  them  to  a  single 
active  thought.  The  poet  has  a  hard  task  before  him  to 
stir  up  such  fellows  to  a  sense  of  their  own  and  other 
people's  principles  in  life. 

And  it  happens  that  literature  is,  in  some  ways,  but 
an  indifferent  means  to  such  an  end.  Language  is  but 
a  poor  bull's-eye  lantern  wherewith  to  show  off  the  vast 
cathedral  of  the  world;  and  yet  a  particular  thing  once 
said  in  words  is  so  definite  and  memorable,  that  it 
makes  us  forget  the  absence  of  the  many  which  remain 
unexpressed;  like  a  bright  window  in  a  distant  view, 
which  dazzles  and  confuses  our  sight  of  its  surroundings. 

9« 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND    BOOKS 

There  are  not  words  enough  in  all  Shakespeare  to  ex- 
press the  merest  fraction  of  a  man's  experience  in  an 
hour.  The  speed  of  the  eyesight  and  the  hearing,  and 
the  continual  industry  of  the  mind,  produce,  in  ten  min- 
utes, what  it  would  require  a  laborious  volume  to  shadow 
forth  by  comparisons  and  roundabout  approaches.  If 
verbal  logic  were  sufficient,  life  would  be  as  plain  sail- 
ing as  a  piece  of  Euclid.  But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  we 
make  a  travesty  of  the  simplest  process  of  thought  when 
we  put  it  into  words ;  for  the  words  are  all  coloured  and 
forsworn,  apply  inaccurately,  and  bring  with  them,  from 
former  uses,  ideas  of  praise  and  blame  that  have  nothing 
to  do  with  the  question  in  hand.  So  we  must  always 
see  to  it  nearly,  that  we  judge  by  the  realities  of  life  and 
not  by  the  partial  terms  that  represent  them  in  man's 
speech ;  and  at  times  of  choice,  we  must  leave  words 
upon  one  side,  and  act  upon  those  brute  convictions, 
unexpressed  and  perhaps  inexpressible,  which  cannot 
be  flourished  in  an  argument,  but  which  are  truly  the 
sum  and  fruit  of  our  experience.  Words  are  for  com- 
munication, not  for  judgment.  This  is  what  every 
thoughtful  man  knows  for  himself,  for  only  fools  and 
silly  schoolmasters  push  definitions  over  far  into  the  do- 
main of  conduct;  and  the  majority  of  women,  not  learned 
in  these  scholastic  refinements,  live  all-of-a-piece  and 
unconsciously,  as  a  tree  grows,  without  caring  to  put  a 
name  upon  their  acts  or  motives.  Hence,  a  new  diffi- 
culty for  Whitman's  scrupulous  and  argumentative  poet; 
he  must  do  more  than  waken  up  the  sleepers  to  his 
words;  he  must  persuade  them  to  look  over  the  book 
and  at  life  with  their  own  eyes. 
This  side  of  truth  is  very  present  to  Whitman;  it  is 

92 


WALT  WHITMAN 

this  that  he  means  when  he  tells  us  that  "To  glance 
with  an  eye  confounds  the  learning  of  all  times."  But 
he  is  not  unready.  He  is  never  weary  of  descanting 
on  the  undebatable  conviction  that  is  forced  upon  our 
minds  by  the  presence  of  other  men,  of  animals,  or  of 
inanimate  things.  To  glance  with  an  eye,  were  it  only 
at  a  chair  or  a  park  railing,  is  by  far  a  more  persuasive 
process,  and  brings  us  to  a  far  more  exact  conclusion, 
than  to  read  the  works  of  all  the  logicians  extant.  If 
both,  by  a  large  allowance,  may  be  said  to  end  in  cer- 
tainty, the  certainty  in  the  one  case  transcends  the  other 
to  an  incalculable  degree.  If  people  see  a  lion,  they  run 
away;  if  they  only  apprehend  a  deduction,  they  keep 
wandering  around  in  an  experimental  humour.  Now, 
how  is  the  poet  to  convince  like  nature,  and  not  like 
books  ?  Is  there  no  actual  piece  of  nature  that  he  can 
show  the  man  to  his  face,  as  he  might  show  him  a  tree 
if  they  were  walking  together  ?  Yes,  there  is  one :  the 
man's  own  thoughts.  In  fact,  if  the  poet  is  to  speak 
efficaciously,  he  must  say  what  is  already  in  his  hearer's 
mind.  That,  alone,  the  hearer  will  believe ;  that,  alone, 
he  will  be  able  to  apply  intelligently  to  the  facts  of  life. 
Any  conviction,  even  if  it  be  a  whole  system  or  a  whole 
religion,  must  pass  into  the  condition  of  commonplace, 
or  postulate,  before  it  becomes  fully  operative.  Strange 
excursions  and  high-flying  theories  may  interest,  but 
they  cannot  rule  behaviour.  Our  faith  is  not  the  highest 
truth  that  we  perceive,  but  the  highest  that  we  have 
been  able  to  assimilate  into  the  very  texture  and  method 
of  our  thinking.  It  is  not,  therefore,  by  flashing  before 
a  man's  eyes  the  weapons  of  dialectic ;  it  is  not  by  in- 
duction, deduction,  or  construction ;  it  is  not  by  forcing 

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FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

him  on  from  one  stage  of  reasoning  to  another,  that  the 
man  will  be  effectually  renewed.  He  cannot  be  made 
to  believe  anything;  but  he  can  be  made  to  see  that  he 
has  always  believed  it.  And  this  is  the  practical  canon. 
It  is  when  the  reader  cries,  '*0h,  I  know!"  and  is,  per- 
haps, half  irritated  to  see  how  nearly  the  author  has 
forestalled  his  own  thoughts,  that  he  is  on  the  way  to 
what  is  called  in  theology  a  Saving  Faith. 

Here  we  have  the  key  to  Whitman's  attitude.  To 
give  a  certain  unity  of  ideal  to  the  average  population  of 
America  —  to  gather  their  activities  about  some  concep- 
tion of  humanity  that  shall  be  central  and  normal,  if  only 
for  the  moment  —  the  poet  must  portray  that  population 
as  it  is.  Like  human  law,  human  poetry  is  simply  de- 
claratory. If  any  ideal  is  possible,  it  must  be  already  in 
the  thoughts  of  the  people ;  and,  by  the  same  reason, 
in  the  thoughts  of  the  poet,  who  is  one  of  them.  And 
hence  Whitman's  own  formula:  **The  poet  is  individ- 
ual—  he  is  complete  in  himself:  the  others  are  as  good 
as  he;  only  he  sees  it,  and  they  do  not."  To  show 
them  how  good  they  are,  the  poet  must  study  his  fel- 
low-countrymen and  himself  somewhat  like  a  traveller 
on  the  hunt  for  his  book  of  travels.  There  is  a  sense, 
of  course,  in  which  all  true  books  are  books  of  travel ; 
and  all  genuine  poets  must  run  their  risk  of  being 
charged  with  the  traveller's  exaggeration ;  for  to  whom 
are  such  books  more  surprising  than  to  those  whose 
own  life  is  faithfully  and  smartly  pictured  ?  But  this 
danger  is  all  upon  one  side;  and  you  may  judiciously 
flatter  the  portrait  without  any  likelihood  of  the  sitter's 
disowning  it  for  a  faithful  likeness.  And  so  Whitman 
has  reasoned :  that  by  drawing  at  first  hand  from  him- 

94 


WALT  WHITMAN 

self  and  his  neighbours,  accepting  without  shame  the  in-, 
consistencies  and  brutalities  that  go  to  make  up  man, 
and  yet  treating  the  whole  in  a  high,  magnanimous 
spirit,  he  would  make  sure  of  belief,  and  at  the  same 
time  encourage  people  forward  by  the  means  of  praise. 


We  are  accustomed  nowadays  to  a  great  deal  of  pul- 
ing over  the  circumstances  in  which  we  are  placed. 
The  great  refinement  of  many  poetical  gentlemen  has 
rendered  them  practically  unfit  for  the  jostling  and 
ugliness  of  life,  and  they  record  their  unfitness  at  con- 
siderable length.  The  bold  and  awful  poetry  of  Job's 
complaint  produces  too  many  flimsy  imitators ;  for  there 
is  always  something  consolatory  in  grandeur,  but  the 
symphony  transposed  for  the  piano  becomes  hysterically 
sad.  This  literature  of  woe,  as  Whitman  calls  it,  this 
Maladie  de  Rend,  as  we  like  to  call  it  in  Europe,  is  in 
many  ways  a  most  humiliating  and  sickly  phenomenon. 
Young  gentlemen  with  three  or  four  hundred  a  year  of 
private  means  look  down  from  a  pinnacle  of  doleful  ex- 
perience on  all  the  grown  and  hearty  men  who  have 
dared  to  say  a  good  word  for  life  since  the  beginning  of 
the  world.  There  is  no  prophet  but  the  melancholy 
Jacques,  and  the  blue  devils  dance  on  all  our  literary 
wires. 

It  would  be  a  poor  service  to  spread  culture,  if  this  be 
its  result,  among  the  comparatively  innocent  and  cheer- 
ful ranks  of  men.  When  our  little  poets  have  to  be  sent 
to  look  at  the  ploughman  and  learn  wisdom,  we  must 
be  careful  how  we  tamper  with  our  ploughmen.    Where 

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FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

a  man  in  not  the  best  of  circumstances  preserves  com- 
posure of  mind,  and  relishes  ale  and  tobacco,  and  his 
wife  and  children,  in  the  intervals  of  dull  and  unremu- 
nerative  labour;  where  a  man  in  this  predicament  cart 
afford  a  lesson  by  the  way  to  what  are  called  his  intel- 
lectual superiors,  there  is  plainly  something  to  be  lost, 
as  well  as  something  to  be  gained,  by  teaching  him  to 
think  differently.  It  is  better  to  leave  him  as  he  is  than 
to  teach  him  whining.  It  is  better  that  he  should  go 
without  the  cheerful  lights  of  culture,  if  cheerless  doubt 
and  paralysing  sentimentalism  are  to  be  the  consequence. 
Let  us,  by  all  means,  fight  against  that  hide-bound 
stolidity  of  sensation  and  sluggishness  of  mind  which 
blurs  and  decolourises  for  poor  natures  the  wonderful 
pageant  of  consciousness ;  let  us  teach  people,  as  much 
as  we  can,  to  enjoy,  and  they  will  learn  for  themselves 
to  sympathise ;  but  let  us  see  to  it,  above  all,  that  we 
give  these  lessons  in  a  brave,  vivacious  note,  and  build 
the  man  up  in  courage  while  we  demolish  its  substitute, 
indifference. 

Whitman  is  alive  to  all  this.  He  sees  that,  if  the  poet 
is  to  be  of  any  help,  he  must  testify  to  the  livableness 
of  life.  His  poems,  he  tells  us,  are  to  be  "hymns  of  the 
praise  of  things."  They  are  to  make  for  a  certain  high 
joy  in  living,  or  what  he  calls  himself  "a  brave  delight 
fit  for  freedom's  athletes."  And  he  has  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  introducing  his  optimism:  it  fitted  readily 
enough  with  his  system ;  for  the  average  man  is  truly  a 
courageous  person  and  truly  fond  of  living.  One  of 
Whitman's  remarks  upon  this  head  is  worth  quotation, 
as  he  is  there  perfectly  successful,  and  does  precisely 
what  he  designs  to  do  throughout:    Takes  ordinary 

96 


WALT   WHITMAN 

and  even  commonplace  circumstances;  throws  them 
out,  by  a  happy  turn  of  thinking,  into  significance  and 
something  like  beauty ;  and  tacks  a  hopeful  moral  lesson 
to  the  end. 

"  The  passionate  tenacity  of  hunters,  woodmen,  early  risers,  culti- 
vators of  gardens  and  orchards  and  fields,  he  says,  the  love  of  healthy 
women  for  the  manly  form,  seafaring  persons,  drivers  of  horses,  the 
passion  for  light  and  the  open  air,  —  all  is  an  old  unvaried  sign  of  the 
unfailing  perception  of  beauty,  and  of  the  residence  of  the  poetic  in 
outdoor  people." 

There  seems  to  me  something  truly  original  in  this 
choice  of  trite  examples.  You  will  remark  how  adroitly 
Whitman  begins,  hunters  and  woodmen  being  confess- 
edly romantic.  And  one  thing  more.  If  he  had  said 
"  the  love  of  healthy  men  for  the  female  form,"  he  would 
have  said  almost  a  silliness;  for  the  thing  has  never  been 
dissembled  out  of  delicacy,  and  is  so  obvious  as  to  be  a 
public  nuisance.  But  by  reversing  it,  he  tells  us  some- 
thing not  unlike  news;  something  that  sounds  quite 
freshly  in  words ;  and,  if  the  reader  be  a  man,  gives  him 
a  moment  of  great  self-satisfaction  and  spiritual  aggran- 
dizement. In  many  different  authors  you  may  find  pas- 
sages more  remarkable  for  grammar,  but  few  of  a  more 
ingenious  turn,  and  none  that  could  be  more  to  the 
point  in  our  connection.  The  tenacity  of  many  ordinary 
people  in  ordinary  pursuits  is  a  sort  of  standing  chal- 
lenge to  everybody  else.  If  one  man  can  grow  absorbed 
in  delving  his  garden,  others  may  grow  absorbed  and 
happy  over  something  else.  Not  to  be  upsides  in  this 
with  any  groom  or  gardener,  is  to  be  very  meanly  or- 
ganised.    A  man  should  be  ashamed  to  take  his  food 

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FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND  BOOKS 

if  he  has  not  alchemy  enough  in  his  stomach  to  turn 
some  of  it  into  intense  and  enjoyable  occupation. 

Whitman  tries  to  reinforce  this  cheerfulness  by  keep- 
ing up  a  sort  of  outdoor  atmosphere  of  sentiment.  His 
book,  he  tells  us,  should  be  read  "among  the  cooling 
influences  of  external  nature;"  and  this  recommenda- 
tion, like  that  other  famous  one  which  Hawthorne  pre- 
fixed to  his  collected  tales,  is  in  itself  a  character  of  the 
work.  Every  one  who  has  been  upon  a  walking  or  a 
boating  tour,  living  in  the  open  air,  with  the  body  in 
constant  exercise  and  the  mind  in  fallow,  knows  true 
ease  and  quiet.  The  irritating  action  of  the  brain  is  set 
at  rest;  we  think  in  a  plain,  unfeverish  temper;  little 
things  seem  big  enough,  and  great  things  no  longer 
portentous ;  and  the  world  is  smilingly  accepted  as  it 
is.  This  is  the  spirit  that  Whitman  inculcates  and  pa- 
rades. He  thinks  very  ill  of  the  atmosphere  of  parlours 
or  libraries.  Wisdom  keeps  school  outdoors.  And  he 
has  the  art  to  recommend  this  attitude  of  mind  by  sim- 
ply pluming  himself  upon  it  as  a  virtue;  so  that  the 
reader,  to  keep  the  advantage  over  his  author  which 
most  readers  enjoy,  is  tricked  into  professing  the  same 
view.  And  this  spirit,  as  it  is  his  chief  lesson,  is  the 
greatest  charm  of  his  work.  Thence,  in  spite  of  an 
uneven  and  emphatic  key  of  expression,  something 
trenchant  and  straightforward,  something  simple  and 
surprising,  distinguishes  his  poems.  He  has  sayings 
that  come  home  to  one  like  the  Bible.  We  fall  upon 
Whitman,  after  the  works  of  so  many  men  who  write 
better,  with  a  sense  of  relief  from  strain,  with  a  sense 
of  touching  nature,  as  when  one  passes  out  of  the  flar- 
ing, noisy  thoroughfares  of  a  great  city  into  what  he 

98 


WALT  WHITMAN 

himself  has  called,  with  unexcelled  imaginative  justice 
of  language,  "the  huge  and  thoughtful  night."  And 
his  book  in  consequence,  whatever  may  be  the  final 
judgment  of  its  merit,  whatever  may  be  its  influence  on 
the  future,  should  be  in  the  hands  of  all  parents  and  guar- 
dians as  a  specific  for  the  distressing  malady  of  being 
seventeen  years  old.  Green-sickness  yields  to  his  treat- 
ment as  to  a  charm  of  magic;  and  the  youth,  after  a 
short  course  of  reading,  ceases  to  carry  the  universe 
upon  his  shoulders. 

HI 

Whitman  is  not  one  of  those  who  can  be  deceived  by 
familiarity.  He  considers  it  just  as  wonderful  that  there 
are  myriads  of  stars,  as  that  one  man  should  rise  from 
the  dead.  He  declares  "a  hair  on  the  back  of  his  hand 
just  as  curious  as  any  special  revelation."  His  whole 
life  is  to  him  what  it  was  to  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  one 
perpetual  miracle.  Everything  is  strange,  everything 
unaccountable,  everything  beautiful ;  from  a  bug  to  the 
moon,  from  the  sight  of  the  eyes  to  the  appetite  for 
food.  He  makes  it  his  business  to  see  things  as  if  he 
saw  them  for  the  first  time,  and  professes  astonishment 
on  principle.  But  he  has  no  leaning  toward  mythology ; 
avows  his  contempt  for  what  he  calls  *'unregenerate 
poetry ; "  and  does  not  mean  by  nature 

"  The  smooth  walks,  trimmed  hedges,  butterflies,  posies,  and  night- 
ingales of  the  English  poets,  but  the  whole  orb,  with  its  geologic  his- 
tory, the  Kosmos,  carrying  fire  and  snow,  that  rolls  through  the 
illimitable  areas,  light  as  a  feather  though  weighing  billions  of  tons." 

Nor  is  this  exhaustive ;  for  in  his  character  of  idealist 
all  impressions,  all  thoughts,  trees  and  people,  love  and 

99 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

faith,  astronomy,  history,  and  religion,  enter  upon  equal 
terms  into  his  notion  of  the  universe.  He  is  not  against 
religion ;  not,  indeed,  against  any  religion.  He  wishes 
to  drag  with  a  larger  net,  to  make  a  more  comprehen- 
sive synthesis,  than  any  or  than  all  of  them  put  to- 
gether. In  feeling  after  the  central  type  of  man,  he 
must  embrace  all  eccentricities;  his  cosmology  must 
subsume  all  cosmologies,  and  the  feelings  that  gave 
birth  to  them;  his  statement  of  facts  must  include  all  re- 
ligion and  all  irreligion,  Christ  and  Boodha,  God  and  the 
devil.  The  world  as  it  is,  and  the  whole  world  as  it  is, 
physical,  and  spiritual,  and  historical,  with  its  good  and 
bad,  with  its  manifold  inconsistencies,  is  what  he  wishes 
to  set  forth,  in  strong,  picturesque,  and  popular  linea- 
ments, for  the  understanding  of  the  average  man.  One 
of  his  favourite  endeavours  is  to  get  the  whole  matter 
into  a  nutshell;  to  knock  the  four  corners  of  the  uni- 
verse, one  after  another,  about  his  reader's  ears ;  to  hurry 
him,  in  breathless  phrases,  hither  and  thither,  back  and 
forward,  in  time  and  space;  to  focus  all  this  about  his 
ov/n  momentary  personality;  and  then,  drawing  the 
ground  from  under  his  feet,  as  if  by  some  cataclysm  of 
nature,  to  plunge  him  into  the  unfathomable  abyss  sown 
with  enormous  suns  and  systems,  and  among  the  in- 
conceivable numbers  and  magnitudes  and  velocities  of 
the  heavenly  bodies.  So  that  he  concludes  by  striking 
into  us  some  sense  of  that  disproportion  of  things  which 
Shelley  has  illuminated  by  the  ironical  flash  of  these 
eight  words :  The  desire  of  the  moth  for  the  star. 

The  same  truth,  but  to  what  a  different  purpose! 
Whitman's  moth  is  mightily  at  his  ease  about  all  the 
planets  in  heaven,  and  cannot  think  too  highly  of  our 


WALT  WHITMAN 

sublunary  tapers.  The  universe  is  so  large  that  imag- 
ination flags  in  the  effort  to  conceive  it ;  but  here,  in  the 
meantime,  is  the  world  under  our  feet,  a  very  warm 
and  habitable  corner.  "The  earth,  that  is  sufficient;  I 
do  not  want  the  constellations  any  nearer,"  he  remarks 
And  again:  ''Let  your  soul  stand  cool  and  composed," 
says  he,  "before  a  million  universes."  It  is  the  lan- 
guage of  a  transcendental  common  sense,  such  as  Tho- 
reau  held  and  sometimes  uttered.  But  Whitman,  who 
has  a  somewhat  vulgar  inclination  for  technical  talk  and 
the  jargon  of  philosophy,  is  not  content  with  a  few 
pregnant  hints;  he  must  put  the  dots  upon  his  i's;  he 
must  corroborate  the  songs  of  Apollo  by  some  of  the 
darkest  talk  of  human  metaphysic.  He  tells  his  dis- 
ciples that  they  must  be  ready  "to  confront  the  grow- 
ing arrogance  of  Realism."  Each  person  is,  for  him- 
self, the  keystone  and  the  occasion  of  this  universal 
edifice.  "Nothing,  not  God,"  he  says,  "is  greater  to  one 
than  oneself  is; "  a  statement  with  an  irreligious  smack 
at  the  first  sight ;  but  like  most  startling  sayings,  a  mani- 
fest truism  on  a  second.  He  will  give  effect  to  his  own 
character  without  apology;  he  sees  "that  the  element- 
ary laws  never  apologise."  "I  reckon,"  he  adds,  with 
quaint  colloquial  arrogance,  "I  reckon  I  behave  no 
prouder  than  the  level  I  plant  my  house  by,  after  all." 
The  level  follows  the  law  of  its  being;  so,  unrelentingly, 
will  he;  everything,  every  person,  is  good  in  his  own 
place  and  way ;  God  is  the  maker  of  all,  and  all  are  in 
one  design.  For  he  believes  in  God,  and  that  with  a 
sort  of  blasphemous  security.  "No  array  of  terms," 
quoth  he,  "no  array  of  terms  can  say  how  much  at 
peace  1  am  about  God  and  about  death."    There  cer- 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

tainly  never  was  a  prophet  who  carried  things  with  a 
higher  hand ;  he  gives  us  less  a  body  of  dogmas  than  a 
series  of  proclamations  by  the  grace  of  God ;  and  lan- 
guage, you  will  observe,  positively  fails  him  to  express 
how  far  he  stands  above  the  highest  human  doubts  and 
trepidations. 

But  next  in  order  of  truths  to  a  person's  sublime  con- 
viction of  himself,  comes  the  attraction  of  one  person 
for  another,  and  all  that  we  mean  by  the  word  love :  — 

"The  dear  love  of  man  for  his  comrade  —  the  attraction  of  friend  for 
friend, 
Of  the  well-married  husband  and  wife,  of  children  and  parents, 
Of  city  for  city  and  land  for  land." 

The  solitude  of  the  most  sublime  idealist  is  broken  in 
upon  by  other  people's  faces ;  he  sees  a  look  in  their  eyes 
that  corresponds  to  something  in  his  own  heart;  there 
comes  a  tone  in  their  voices  which  convicts  him  of  a 
startling  weakness  for  his  fellow-creatures.  While  he  is 
hymning  the  ego  and  commercing  with  God  and  the 
universe,  a  woman  goes  below  his  window;  and  at  the 
turn  of  her  skirt  or  the  colour  of  her  eyes,  Icarus  is  re- 
called from  heaven  by  the  run.  Love  is  so  startlingly 
real  that  it  takes  rank  upon  an  equal  footing  of  reality 
with  the  consciousness  of  personal  existence.  We  are 
as  heartily  persuaded  of  the  identity  of  those  we  love  as 
of  our  own  identity.  And  so  sympathy  pairs  with  self- 
assertion,  the  two  gerents  of  human  life  on  earth ;  and 
Whitman's  ideal  man  must  not  only  be  strong,  free,  and 
self-reliant  in  himself,  but  his  freedom  must  be  bounded 
and  his  strength  perfected  by  the  most  intimate,  eager, 
and  long-suffering  love  for  others.    To  some  extent  this 

103 


.     WALT   WHITMAN 

is  taking  away  with  the  left  hand  what  has  been  so  gen- 
erously given  with  the  right.  Morality  has  been  cere- 
moniously extruded  from  the  door  only  to  be  brought 
in  again  by  the  window.  We  are  told,  on  one  page,  to 
do  as  we  please;  and  on  the  next  we  are  sharply  up- 
braided for  not  having  done  as  the  author  pleases.  We 
are  first  assured  that  we  are  the  finest  fellows  in  the 
world  in  our  own  right ;  and  then  it  appears  that  we  are 
only  fine  fellows  in  so  far  as  we  practise  a  most  quixotic 
code  of  morals.  The  disciple  who  saw  himself  in  clear 
ether  a  moment  before  is  plunged  down  again  among 
the  fogs  and  complications  of  duty.  And  this  is  all  the 
more  overwhelming  because  Whitman  insists  not  only 
on  love  between  sex  and  sex,  and  between  friends  of 
the  same  sex,  but  in  the  field  of  the  less  intense  politi- 
cal sympathies;  and  his  ideal  man  must  not  only  be  a 
generous  friend  but  a  conscientious  voter  into  the  bar- 
gain. 

His  method  somewhat  lessens  the  difficulty.  He  is 
not,  the  reader  will  remember,  to  tell  us  how  good  we 
ought  to  be,  but  to  remind  us  how  good  we  are.  He  is 
to  encourage  us  to  be  free  and  kind,  by  proving  that  we 
are  free  and  kind  already.  He  passes  our  corporate  life 
under  review,  to  show  that  it  is  upheld  by  the  very  vir- 
tues of  which  he  makes  himself  the  advocate.  ''There 
is  no  object  so  soft,"  he  says  somewhere  in  his  big,  plain 
way,  "there  is  no  object  so  soft  but  it  makes  a  hub  for 
the  wheel'd  universe."  Rightly  understood,  it  is  on  the 
softest  of  all  objects,  the  sympathetic  heart,  that  the 
wheel  of  society  turns  easily  and  securely  as  on  a  perfect 
axle.  There  is  no  room,  of  course,  for  doubt  or  discus- 
sion, about  conduct,  where  every  one  is  to  follow  the. 

103 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

law  of  his  being  with  exact  compliance.  Whitman  hates 
doubt,  deprecates  discussion,  and  discourages  to  his  ut- 
most the  craving,  carping  sensibilities  of  the  conscience. 
We  are  to  imitate,  to  use  one  of  his  absurd  and  happy 
phrases,  **the  satisfaction  and  aplomb  of  animals."  If 
he  preaches  a  sort  of  ranting  Christianity  in  morals,  a  fit 
consequent  to  the  ranting  optimism  of  his  cosmology,  it 
is  because  he  declares  it  to  be  the  original  deliverance 
of  the  human  heart ;  or  at  least,  for  he  would  be  hon- 
estly historical  in  method,  of  the  human  heart  as  at  pres- 
ent Christianised.  His  is  a  morality  without  a  prohibi- 
tion ;  his  policy  is  one  of  encouragement  all  round.  A 
man  must  be  a  born  hero  to  come  up  to  Whitman's  stand- 
ard in  the  practice  of  any  of  the  positive  virtues ;  but  of 
a  negative  virtue,  such  as  temperance  or  chastity,  he  has 
so  little  to  say,  that  the  reader  need  not  be  surprised  if  he 
drops  a  word  or  two  upon  the  other  side.  He  would 
lay  down  nothing  that  would  be  a  clog;  he  would  pre- 
scribe nothing  that  cannot  be  done  ruddily,  in  a  heat. 
The  great  point  is  to  get  people  under  way.  To  the 
faithful  Whitmanite  this  would  be  justified  by  the  belief 
that  God  made  all,  and  that  all  was  good ;  the  prophet, 
in  this  doctrine,  has  only  to  cry  "Tally-ho,"  and  man- 
kind will  break  into  a  gallop  on  the  road  to  El  Dorado. 
Perhaps,  to  another  class  of  minds,  it  may  look  like  the 
result  of  the  somewhat  cynical  reflection  that  you  will 
not  make  a  kind  man  out  of  one  who  is  unkind  by  any 
precepts  under  heaven;  tempered  by  the  belief  that,  in 
natural  circumstances,  the  large  majority  is  well  dis- 
posed. Thence  it  would  follow,  that  if  you  can  only  get 
every  one  to  feel  more  warmly  and  act  more  cour- 
ageously, the  balance  of  results  will  be  for  good. 

104 


WALT  WHITMAN 

So  far,  you  see,  the  doctrine  is  pretty  coherent  as  a 
doctrine;  as  a  picture  of  man's  life  it  is  incomplete  and 
misleading,  although  eminently  cheerful.  This  he  is 
himself  the  first  to  acknowledge;  for  if  he  is  prophetic 
in  anything,  it  is  in  his  noble  disregard  of  consistency. 
*'Do  I  contradict  myself?"  he  asks  somewhere;  and 
then  pat  comes  the  answer,  the  best  answer  ever  given 
in  print,  worthy  of  a  sage,  or  rather  of  a  woman :  ' '  Very 
well,  then,  I  contradict  myself !  "  with  this  addition,  not 
so  feminine  and  perhaps  not  altogether  so  satisfactory : 
'*I  am  large — I  contain  multitudes."  Life,  as  a  matter 
of  fact,  partakes  largely  of  the  nature  of  tragedy.  The 
gospel  according  to  Whitman,  even  if  it  be  not  so  log- 
ical, has  this  advantage  over  the  gospel  according  to 
Pangloss,  that  it  does  not  utterly  disregard  the  existence 
of  temporal  evil.  Whitman  accepts  the  fact  of  disease 
and  wretchedness  like  an  honest  man;  and  instead  of 
trying  to  qualify  it  in  the  interest  of  his  optimism,  sets 
himself  to  spur  people  up  to  be  helpful.  He  expresses 
a  conviction,  indeed,  that  all  will  be  made  up  to  the 
victims  in  the  end;  that  ''what  is  untried  and  after- 
ward "  will  fail  no  one,  not  even  "the  old  man  who  has 
lived  without  purpose  and  feels  it  with  bitterness  worse 
than  gall."  But  this  is  not  to  palliate  our  sense  of  what 
is  hard  or  melancholy  in  the  present.  Pangloss,  smart- 
ing under  one  of  the  worst  things  that  ever  was  sup- 
posed to  come  from  America,  consoled  himself  with  the 
reflection  that  it  was  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  cochi- 
neal. And  with  that  murderous  parody,  logical  op- 
timism and  the  praises  of  the  best  of  possible  worlds  went 
irrevocably  out  of  season,  and  have  been  no  more  heard 
of  in  the  mouths  of  reasonable  men.     Whitman  spares 

105 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

US  all  allusions  to  the  cochineal ;  he  treats  evil  and  sorrow 
in  a  spirit  almost  as  of  welcome ;  as  an  old  sea-dog 
might  have  welcomed  the  sight  of  the  enemy's  topsails 
off  the  Spanish  Main.  There,  at  least,  he  seems  to  say, 
is  something  obvious  to  be  done.  I  do  not  know  many 
better  things  in  literature  than  the  brief  pictures, — brief 
and  vivid  like  things  seen  by  lightning,  —  with  which 
he  tries  to  stir  up  the  world's  heart  upon  the  side  of 
mercy.  He  braces  us,  on  the  one  hand,  with  examples 
of  heroic  duty  and  helpfulness;  on  the  other,  he  touches 
us  with  pitiful  instances  of  people  needing  help.  He 
knows  how  to  make  the  heart  beat  at  a  brave  story ;  to 
inflame  us  with  just  resentment  over  the  bunted  slave; 
to  stop  our  mouths  for  shame  when  he  tells  of  the 
drunken  prostitute.  For  all  the  afflicted,  all  the  weak, 
all  the  wicked,  a  good  word  is  said  in  a  spirit  which  I 
can  only  call  one  of  ultra-Christianity;  and  however 
wild,  however  contradictory,  it  may  be  in  parts,  this  at 
least  may  be  said  for  his  book,  as  it  may  be  said  of  the 
Christian  Gospels,  that  no  one  will  read  it,  however  re- 
spectable, but  he  gets  a  knock  upon  his  conscience;  no 
one,  however  fallen,  but  he  finds  a  kindly  and  support- 
ing welcome. 

IV 

Nor  has  he  been  content  with  merely  blowing  the 
trumpet  for  the  battle  of  well-doing;  he  has  given  to 
his  precepts  the  authority  of  his  own  brave  example. 
Naturally  a  grave,  believing  man,  with  little  or  no  sense 
of  humour,  he  has  succeeded  as  well  in  life  as  in  his 
printed  performances.  The  spirit  that  was  in  him  has 
come  forth  most  eloquently  in  his  actions.     Many  who 

106 


WALT  WHITMAN 

have  only  read  his  poetry  have  been  tempted  to  set  him 
down  as  an  ass,  or  even  as  a  charlatan ;  but  I  never  met 
any  one  who  had  known  him  personally  who  did  not 
profess  a  solid  affection  and  respect  for  the  man's  char- 
acter. He  practises  as  he  professes;  he  feels  deeply 
that  Christian  love  for  all  men,  that  toleration,  that 
cheerful  delight  in  serving  others,  which  he  often  cele- 
brates in  literature  with  a  doubtful  measure  of  success. 
And  perhaps,  out  of  all  his  writings,  the  best  and  the 
most  human  and  convincing  passages  are  to  be  found 
in  "these  soil'd  and  creas'd  little  livraisons,  each  com- 
posed of  a  sheet  or  two  of  paper,  folded  small  to  carry 
in  the  pocket,  and  fastened  with  a  pin,"  which  he  scrib- 
bled during  the  war  by  the  bedsides  of  the  wounded  or 
in  the  excitement  of  great  events.  They  are  hardly  lit- 
erature in  the  formal  meaning  of  the  word ;  he  has  left 
his  jottings  for  the  most  part  as  he  made  them;  a 
homely  detail,  a  word  from  the  lips  of  a  dying  soldier, 
a  business  memorandum,  the  copy  of  a  letter — short, 
straightforward  to  the  point,  with  none  of  the  trappings 
of  composition;  but  they  breathe  a  profound  sentiment, 
they  give  us  a  vivid  look  at  one  of  the  sides  of  life,  and 
they  make  us  acquainted  with  a  man  whom  it  is  an 
honour  to  love. 

Whitman's  intense  Americanism,  his  unlimited  belief 
in  the  future  of  These  States  (as,  with  reverential  capi- 
tals, he  loves  to  call  them),  made  the  war  a  period  of 
great  trial  to  his  soul.  The  new  virtue.  Unionism,  of 
which  he  is  the  sole  inventor,  seemed  to  have  fallen  into 
premature  unpopularity.  All  that  he  loved,  hoped,  or 
hated,  hung  in  the  balance.  And  the  game  of  war  was 
not  only  momentous  to  him  in  its  issues ;  it  sublimated 

107 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND  BOOKS 

his  spirit  by  its  heroic  displays,  and  tortured  him  inti- 
mately by  the  spectacle  of  its  horrors.  It  was  a  theatre, 
it  was  a  place  of  education,  it  was  like  a  season  of 
religious  revival.  He  watched  Lincoln  going  daily  to 
his  work;  he  studied  and  fraternised  with  young  sol- 
diery passing  to  the  front ;  above  all,  he  walked  the  hos- 
pitals, reading  the  Bible,  distributing  clean  clothes,  or 
apples,  or  tobacco;  a  patient,  helpful,  reverend  man,  full 
of  kind  speeches. 

His  memoranda  of  this  period  are  almost  bewildering 
to  read.  From  one  point' of  view  they  seem  those  of  a 
district  visitor;  from  another,  they  look  like  the  form- 
less jottings  of  an  artist  in  the  picturesque.  More  than 
one  woman,  on  whom  I  tried  the  experiment,  imme- 
diately claimed  the  writer  for  a  fellow-woman.  More 
than  one  literary  purist  might  identify  him  as  a  shoddy 
newspaper  correspondent  without  the  necessary  faculty 
of  style.  And  yet  the  story  touches  home;  and  if  you 
are  of  the  weeping  order  of  mankind,  you  will  certainly 
find  your  eyes  fill  with  tears,  of  which  you  have  no 
reason  to  be  ashamed.  There  is  only  one  way  to  char- 
acterise a  work  of  this  order,  and  that  is  to  quote.  Here 
is  a  passage  from  a  letter  to  a  mother,  unknown  to 
Whitman,  whose  son  died  in  hospital  :— 

*'  Frank,  as  far  as  I  saw,  had  everything  requisite  in  surgical  treat- 
ment, nursing,  etc.  He  had  watches  much  of  the  time.  He  was  so 
good  and  well-behaved,  and  affectionate,  I  myself  liked  him  very 
much.  I  was  in  the  habit  of  coming  in  afternoons  and  sitting  by  him, 
and  he  liked  to  have  me — liked  to  put  out  his  arm  and  lay  his  hand  on 
my  knee — would  keep  it  so  a  long  while.  Toward  the  last  he  was 
more  restless  and  flighty  at  night — often  fancied  himself  with  his  regi- 
ment— by  his  talk  sometimes  seem'd  as  if  his  feelings  were  hurt  by  be- 
ing blamed  by  his  officers  for  something  he  was  entirely  innocent  of— * 

108 


WALT  WHITMAN 

said  '  I  never  in  my  life  was  thought  capable  of  such  a  thing,  and  nev- 
er was.'  At  other  times  he  would  fancy  himself  talking  as  it  seem'd 
to  children  or  such  like,  his  relatives,  I  suppose^  and  giving  them  good 
advice;  would  talk  to  them  a  long  while.  All  the  time  he  was  out  of 
his  head  not  one  single  bad  word,  or  thought,  or  idea  escaped  him.  It 
was  remark'd  that  many  a  man's  conversation  in  his  senses  was  not 
half  so  good  as  Frank's  delirium. 

"  He  was  perfectly  willing  to  die — he  had  become  very  weak,  and 
had  suffer'd  a  good  deal,  and  was  perfectly  resign'd,  poor  boy.  I  do 
not  know  his  past  life,  but  I  feel  as  if  it  must  have  been  good.  At  any 
rate  what  I  saw  of  him  here,  under  the  most  trying  circumstances,  with 
a  painful  wound,  and  among  strangers,  I  can  say  that  he  behaved  so 
brave,  so  composed,  and  so  sweet  and  affectionate,  it  could  not  be 
surpassed.  And  now,  like  many  other  noble  and  good  men,  after  serv- 
ing his  country  as  a  soldier,  he  has  yielded  up  his  young  life  at  the 
very  outset  in  her  service.  Such  things  are  gloomy — yet  there  is  a 
text,  *  God  doeth  all  things  well,'  the  meaning  of  which,  after  due 
time,  appears  to  the  soul. 

"  I  thought  perhaps  a  few  words,  though  from  a  stranger,  about 
your  son,  from  one  who  was  with  him  at  the  last,  might  be  worth 
while,  for  I  loved  the  young  man,  though  I  but  saw  him  immediately 
to  lose  him." 

It  is  easy  enough  to  pick  holes  in  the  grammar  of  this 
letter,  but  what  are  we  to  say  of  its  profound  goodness 
and  tenderness  ?  It  is  written  as  though  he  had  the 
mother's  face  before  his  eyes,  and  saw  her  wincing  in 
the  flesh  at  every  word.  And  what,  again,  are  we  to 
say  of  its  sober  truthfulness,  not  exaggerating,  not  run- 
ning to  phrases,  not  seeking  to  make  a  hero  out  of  what 
was  only  an  ordinary  but  good  and  brave  young  man  ? 
Literary  reticence  is  not  Whitman's  stronghold;  and 
this  reticence  is  not  literary,  but  humane;  it  is  not  that  of 
a  good  artist  but  that  of  a  good  man.  He  knew  that 
what  the  mother  wished  to  hear  about  was  Frank;  and 
he  told  her  about  her  Frank  as  he  was. 

109 


FAMILIAR.  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 
V 

Something  should  be  said  of  Whitman's  style,  for 
style  is  of  the  essence  of  thinking.  And  where  a  man 
is  so  critically  deliberate  as  our  author,  and  goes  sol- 
emnly about  his  poetry  for  an  ulterior  end,  every  indica- 
tion is  worth  notice.  He  has  chosen  a  rough,  unrhymed, 
lyrical  verse;  sometimes  instinct  with  a  fine  proces- 
sional movement;  often  so  rugged  and  careless  that  it 
can  only  be  described  by  saying  that  he  has  not  taken 
the  trouble  to  write  prose.  I  believe  myself  that  it  was 
selected  principally  because  it  was  easy  to  write,  al- 
though not  without  recollections  of  the  marching  mea- 
sures of  some  of  the  prose  in  our  English  Old  Testament. 
According  to  Whitman,  on  the  other  hand,  "the  time 
has  arrived  to  essentially  break  down  the  barriers  of  form 
between  Prose  and  Poetry  ...  for  the  most  cogent 
purposes  of  those  great  inland  states,  and  for  Texas,  and 
California^  and  Oregon ;  "  —  a  statement  which  is  among 
the  happiest  achievements  of  American  humour.  He 
calls  his  verses  '*  recitatives,"  in  easily  followed  allusion 
to  a  musical  form.  "Easily-written,  loose-fingered 
chords,"  he  cries,  "I  feel  the  thrum  of  your  climax  and 
close."  Too  often,  I  fear,  he  is  the  only  one  who  can 
perceive  the  rhythm ;  and  in  spite  of  Mr.  Swinburne,  a 
great  part  of  his  work  considered  as  verse  is  poor  bald 
stuff.  Considered,  not  as  verse,  but  as  speech,  a  great 
part  of  it  is  full  of  strange  and  admirable  merits.  The 
right  detail  is  seized ;  the  right  word,  bold  and  trenchant, 
is  thrust  into  its  place.  Whitman  has  small  regard  to 
literary  decencies,  and  is  totally  free  from  literary  timid- 
ities.    He  is  neither  afraid  of  being  slangy  nor  of  being 

no 


WALT  WHITMAN 

dull;  nor,  let  me  add,  of  being  ridiculous.  The  result 
is  a  most  surprising  compound  of  plain  grandeur,  senti- 
mental affectation,  and  downright  nonsense.  It  would 
be  useless  to  follow  his  detractors  and  give  instances 
of  how  bad  he  can  be  at  his  worst;  and  perhaps  it 
would  be  not  much  wiser  to  give  extracted  specimens 
of  how  happily  he  can  write  when  he  is  at  his  best. 
These  come  in  to  most  advantage  in  their  own  place ; 
owing  something,  it  may  be,  to  the  offset  of  their  curi- 
ous surroundings.  And  one  thing  is  certain,  that  no 
one  can  appreciate  Whitman's  excellences  until  he  has 
grown  accustomed  to  his  faults.  Until  you  are  content 
to  pick  poetry  out  of  his  pages  almost  as  you  must  pick 
it  out  of  a  Greek  play  in  Bohn's  translation,  your  gravity 
will  be  continually  upset,  your  ears  perpetually  disap- 
pointed, and  the  whole  book  will  be  no  more  to  you 
than  a  particularly  flagrant  production  by  the  Poet 
Close. 

A  writer  of  this  uncertain  quality  was,  perhaps,  un- 
fortunate in  taking  for  thesis  the  beauty  of  the  world  as 
it  now  is,  not  only  on  the  hill-tops,  but  in  the  factory; 
not  only  by  the  harbour  full  of  stately  ships,  but  in  the 
magazine  of  the  hopelessly  prosaic  hatter.  To  show 
beauty  in  common  things  is  the  work  of  the  rarest  tact. 
It  is  not  to  be  done  by  the  wishing.  It  is  easy  to  posit  as  a 
theory,but  to  bring  it  home  to  men's  minds  is  the  problem 
of  literature,  and  is  only  accomplished  by  rare  talent,  and 
in  comparatively  rare  instances.  To  bid  the  whole 
world  stand  and  deliver,  with  a  dogma  in  one's  right 
hand  by  way  of  pistol ;  to  cover  reams  of  paper  in  a  gal- 
loping, headstrong  vein;  to  cry  louder  and  louder  over 
everything  as  it  comes  up,  and  make  no  distinction  in 

III 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

one's  enthusiasm  over  the  most  incomparable  matters; 
to  prove  one's  entire  want  of  sympathy  for  the  jaded, 
literary  palate,  by  calling,  not  a  spade  a  spade,  but  a 
hatter  a  hatter,  in  a  lyrical  apostrophe ;  —  this,  in  spite  of 
all  the  airs  of  inspiration,  is  not  the  way  to  do  it.  It  may 
be  very  wrong,  and  very  wounding  to  a  respectable 
branch  of  industry,  but  the  word  "  hatter"  cannot  be 
used  seriously  in  emotional  verse;  not  to  understand 
this,  is  to  have  no  literary  tact;  and  I  would,  for  his  own 
sake,  that  this  were  the  only  inadmissible  expression 
with  which  Whitman  had  bedecked  his  pages.  The 
book  teems  with  similar  comicalities;  and,  to  a  reader 
who  is  determined  to  take  it  from  that  side  only,  presents 
a  perfect  carnival  of  fun. 

A  good  deal  of  this  is  the  result  of  theory  playing  its 
usual  vile  trick  upon  the  artist.  It  is  because  he  is 
a  Democrat  that  Whitman  must  have  in  the  hatter.  If 
you  may  say  Admiral,  he  reasons,  why  may  you  not 
say  Hatter  ?  One  man  is  as  good  as  another,  and  it  is 
the  business  of  the  ''great  poet"  to  show  poetry  in  the 
life  of  the  one  as  well  as  the  other.  A  most  incontro- 
vertible sentiment  surely,  and  one  which  nobody  would 
think  of  controverting,  where  —  and  here  is  the  point  — 
where  any  beauty  has  been  shown.  But  how,  where 
that  is  not  the  case  ?  where  the  hatter  is  simply  intro- 
duced, as  God  made  him  and  as  his  fellow-men  have 
miscalled  him,  at  the  crisis  of  a  high-flown  rhapsody  ? 
And  what  are  we  to  say,  where  a  man  of  Whitman's 
notable  capacity  for  putting  things  in  a  bright,  pictu- 
resque, and  novel  way,  simply  gives  up  the  attempt,  and 
indulges,  with  apparent  exultation,  in  an  inventory  of 
trades  or  implements,  with  no  more  colour  of  coherence 

1 12 


WALT  WHITMAN 

than  so  many  index- words  out  of  a  dictionary  ?  I  do 
not  know  that  we  can  say  anything,  but  that  it  is  a  pro- 
digiously amusing  exhibition  for  a  line  or  so.  The  worst 
of  it  is,  that  Whitman  must  have  known  better;  The 
man  is  a  great  critic,  and,  so  far  as  I  can  make  out,  a 
good  one ;  and  how  much  criticism  does  it  require  to 
know  that  capitulation  is  not  description,  or  that  finger- 
ing on  a  dumb  keyboard,  with  whatever  show  of  senti- 
ment and  execution,  is  not  at  all  the  same  thing  as 
discoursing  music  ?  I  wish  I  could  believe  he  was 
quite  honest  with  us ;  but,  indeed,  who  was  ever  quite 
honest  who  wrote  a  book  for  a  purpose  ?  It  is  a  flight 
beyond  the  reach  of  human  magnanimity. 

One  other  point,  where  his  means  failed  him,  must  be 
touched  upon,  however  shortly.  In  his  desire  to  accept 
all  facts  loyally  and  simply,  it  fell  within  his  programme 
to  speak  at  some  length  and  with  some  plainness  on 
what  is,  for  I  really  do  not  know  what  reason,  the  most 
delicate  of  subjects.  Seeing  in  that  one  of  the  most  se- 
rious and  interesting  parts  of  life,  he  was  aggrieved  that 
it  should  be  looked  upon  as  ridiculous  or  shameful. 
No  one  speaks  of  maternity  with  his  tongue  in  his 
cheek;  and  Whitman  made  a  bold  push  to  set  the  sanc- 
tity of  fatherhood  beside  the  sanctity  of  motherhood, 
and  introduce  this  also  among  the  things  that  can  be 
spoken  of  without  either  a  blush  or  a  wink.  But  the 
Philistines  have  been  too  strong;  and,  to  say  truth. 
Whitman  has  rather  played  the  fool.  We  may  be  thor- 
oughly conscious  that  his  end  is  improving ;  that  it  would 
be  a  good  thing  if  a  window  were  opened  on  these  close 
privacies  of  life;  that  on  this  subject,  as  on  all  others,  he 
now  and  then  lets  fall  a  pregnant  saying.     But  we  are 

113 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

not  satisfied.  We  feel  that  he  was  not  the  man  for  so 
difficult  an  enterprise.  He  loses  our  sympathy  in  the 
character  of  a  poet  by  attracting  too  much  of  our  atten- 
tion in  that  of  a  Bull  in  a  China  Shop.  And  where,  by 
a  little  more  art,  we  might  have  been  solemnised  our- 
selves, it  is  too  often  Whitman  alone  who  is  solemn  in 
the  face  of  an  audience  somewhat  indecorously  amused. 

VI 

Lastly,  as  most  important,  after  all,  to  human  beings 
in  our  disputable  state,  what  is  that  higher  prudence 
which  was  to  be  the  aim  and  issue  of  these  deliberate 
productions  ? 

Whitman  is  too  clever  to  slip  into  a  succinct  formula. 
If  he  could  have  adequately  said  his  say  in  a  single  pro- 
verb, it  is  to  be  presumed  he  would  not  have  put  him- 
self to  the  trouble  of  writing  several  volumes.  It  was 
his  programme  to  state  as  much  as  he  could  of  the  world 
with  all  its  contradictions,  and  leave  the  upshot  with 
God  who  planned  it.  What  he  has  made  of  the  world 
and  the  world's  meanings  is  to  be  found  at  large  in  his 
poems.  These  altogether  give  his  answers  to  the  prob- 
lems of  belief  and  conduct;  in  many  ways  righteous  and 
high-spirited,  in  some  ways  loose  and  contradictory. 
And  yet  there  are  two  passages  from  the  preface  to  the 
Leaves  of  Grass  which  do  pretty  well  condense  his 
teaching  on  all  essential  points,  and  yet  preserve  a  meas- 
ure of  his  spirit. 

"  This  is  what  you  shall  do,"  he  says  in  the  one,  "  love  the  earth, 
and  sun,  and  animals,  despise  riches,  give  alms  to  every  one  that  asks, 
stand  up  for  the  stupid  and  crazy,  devote  your  income  and  labor  to 

114 


WALT  WHITMAN 

others,  hate  tyrants,  argue  not  concerning  God,  have  patience  and  in- 
dulgence toward  the  people,  take  off  your  hat  to  nothing  known  or 
unknown,  or  to  any  man  or  number  of  men;  go  freely  with  powerful 
uneducated  persons,  and  with  the  young,  and  mothers  of  families,  read 
these  leaves  (his  own  works)  in  the  open  air  every  season  of  every  year 
of  your  life;  re-examine  all  you  have  been  told  at  school  or  church,  or 
in  any  book,  and  dismiss  whatever  insults  your  own  soul." 

"  The  prudence  of  the  greatest  poet,"  he  adds  in  the  other  —  and  the 
greatest  poet  is,  of  course,  himself —  "  knows  that  the  young  man  who 
composedly  perilled  his  life  and  lost  it,  has  done  exceeding  well  for 
himself;  while  the  man  who  has  not  perilled  his  life,  and  retains  it  to 
old  age  in  riches  and  ease,  has  perhaps  achieved  nothing  for  himself 
worth  mentioning;  and  that  only  that  person  has  no  great  prudence  to 
learn,  who  has  learnt  to  prefer  real  long-lived  things,  and  favours  body 
and  soul  the  same,  and  perceives  the  indirect  surely  following  the  di- 
rect, and  what  evil  or  good  he  does  leaping  onward  and  waiting  to 
meet  him  again,  and  who  in  his  spirit,  in  any  emergency  whatever^ 
neither  hurries  nor  avoids  death." 

There  is  much  that  is  Christian  in  these  extracts,  start- 
lingly  Christian.  Any  reader  who  bears  in  mind  Whit- 
man's own  advice  and  **  dismisses  whatever  insults  his 
own  soul "  will  find  plenty  that  is  bracing,  brightening, 
and  chastening  to  reward  him  for  a  little  patience  at 
first.  It  seems  hardly  possible  that  any  being  should 
get  evil  from  so  healthy  a  book  as  the  Leaves  of  Grass, 
which  is  simply  comical  wherever  it  falls  short  of  nobil- 
ity ;  but  if  there  be  any  such,  who  cannot  both  take  and 
leave,  who  cannot  let  a  single  opportunity  pass  by  with- 
out some  unworthy  and  unmanly  thought,  I  should  have 
as  great  difficulty,  and  neither  more  nor  less,  in  recom- 
mending the  works  of  Whitman  as  in  lending  them 
Shakespeare,  or  letting  them  go  abroad  outside  of  the 
grounds  of  a  private  asylum. 

115 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  : 
HIS  CHARACTER  AND  OPINIONS 

I 

THOREAU'S  thin,  penetrating,  big-nosed  face,  even 
in  a  bad  woodcut,  conveys  some  hint  of  the  lim- 
itations of  his  mind  and  character.  With  his  almost 
acid  sharpness  of  insight,  with  his  almost  animal  dex- 
terity in  act,  there  went  none  of  that  large,  unconscious 
geniality  of  the  world's  heroes.  He  was  not  easy,  not 
ample,  not  urbane,  not  even  kind ;  his  enjoyment  was 
hardly  smiling,  or  the  smile  was  not  broad  enough  to  be 
convincing;  he  had  no  waste  lands  nor  kitchen-midden 
in  his  nature,  but  was  all  improved  and  sharpened  to  a 
point.  "He  was  bred  to  no  profession,"  says  Emer- 
son; "he  never  married;  he  lived  alone;  he  never  went 
to  church ;  he  never  voted ;  he  refused  to  pay  a  tax  to 
the  State;  he  ate  no  flesh,  he  drank  no  wine,  he  never 
knew  the  use  of  tobacco ;  and,  though  a  naturalist,  he 
used  neither  trap  nor  gun.  When  asked  at  dinner  what 
dish  he  preferred,  he  answered,  'the  nearest.'"  So 
many  negative  superiorities  begin  to  smack  a  little  of 
the  prig.  From  his  later  works  he  was  in  the  habit  of 
cutting  out  the  humorous  passages,  under  the  impres- 
sion that  they  were  beneath  the  dignity  of  his  moral 
muse;  and  there  we  see  the  prig  stand  public  and  con- 
fessed.    It  was  "much  easier,"  says  Emerson  acutely, 

u6 


HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

much  easier  for  Thoreau  to  say  no  than  yes;  and  that 
is  a  characteristic  which  depicts  the  man.  It  is  a  useful 
accomplishment  to  be  able  to  say  nOj  but  surely  it  is  the 
essence  of  amiability  to  prefer  to  say  yes  where  it  is 
possible.  There  is  something  wanting  in  the  man  who 
does  not  hate  himself  whenever  he  is  constrained  to  say 
no.  And  there  was  a  great  deal  wanting  in  this  born 
dissenter.  He  was  almost  shockingly  devoid  of  weak- 
nesses; he  had  not  enough  of  them  to  be  truly  polar 
with  humanity;  whether  you  call  him  demi-god  or 
demi-man,  he  was  at  least  not  altogether  one  of  us,  for 
he  was  not  touched  with  a  feeling  of  our  infirmities. 
The  world's  heroes  have  room  for  all  positive  qualities, 
even  those  which  are  disreputable,  in  the  capacious 
theatre  of  their  dispositions.  Such  can  live  many  lives; 
while  a  Thoreau  can  live  but  one,  and  that  only  with 
perpetual  foresight. 

He  was  no  ascetic,  rather  an  Epicurean  of  the  nobler 
sort;  and  he  had  this  one  great  merit,  that  he  succeeded 
so  far  as  to  be  happy.  "I  love  my  fate  to  the  core  and 
rind,"  he  wrote  once;  and  even  while  he  lay  dying, 
here  is  what  he  dictated  (for  it  seems  he  was  already 
too  feeble  to  control  the  pen):  ''You  ask  particularly 
after  my  health.  I  suppose  that  I  have  not  many  months 
to  live,  but  of  course  know  nothing  about  it.  I  may 
say  that  I  am  enjoying  existence  as  much  as  ever,  and 
regret  nothing."  It  is  not  given  to  all  to  bear  so  clear 
a  testimony  to  the  sweetness  of  their  fate,  nor  to  any 
without  courage  and  wisdom ;  for  this  world  in  itself  is 
but  a  painful  and  uneasy  place  of  residence,  and  lasting 
happiness,  at  least  to  the  self-conscious,  comes  only 
from  within.    Now  Thoreau's  content  and  ecstasy  in 

117 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

living  was,  we  may  say,  like  a  plant  that  he  had 
watered  and  tended  with  womanish  solicitude;  for 
there  is  apt  to  be  something  unmanly,  something  al- 
most dastardly,  in  a  life  that  does  not  move  with  dash 
and  freedom,  and  that  fears  the  bracing  contact  of  the 
world.  In  one  word,  Thoreau  was  a  skulker.  He  did 
not  wish  virtue  to  go  out  of  him  among  his  fellow-men, 
but  slunk  into  a  corner  to  hoard  it  for  himself  He  left 
all  for  the  sake  of  certain  virtuous  self-indulgences.  It 
is  true  that  his  tastes  were  noble;  that  his  ruling  pas- 
sion was  to  keep  himself  unspotted  from  the  world; 
and  that  his  luxuries  were  all  of  the  same  healthy  order 
as  cold  tubs  and  early  rising.  But  a  man  may  be  both 
coldly  cruel  in  the  pursuit  of  goodness,  and  morbid  even 
in  the  pursuit  of  health.  I  cannot  lay  my  hands  on  the 
passage  in  which  he  explains  his  abstinence  from  tea 
and  coffee,  but  I  am  sure  I  have  the  meaning  correctly. 
It  is  this:  He  thought  it  bad  economy  and  worthy  of  no 
true  virtuoso  to  spoil  the  natural  rapture  of  the  morning 
with  such  muddy  stimulants;  let  him  but  see  the  sun 
rise,  and  he  was  already  sufficiently  inspirited  for  the 
labours  of  the  day.  That  may  be  reason  good  enough 
to  abstain  from  tea;  but  when  we  go  on  to  find  the 
same  man,  on  the  same  or  similar  grounds,  abstain  from 
nearly  everything  that  his  neighbours  innocently  and 
pleasurably  use,  and  from  the  rubs  and  trials  of  human 
society  itself  into  the  bargain,  we  recognise  that  vale- 
tudinarian healthfulness  which  is  more  delicate  than 
sickness  itself  We  need  have  no  respect  for  a  state  of 
artificial  training.  True  health  is  to  be  able  to  do  with- 
out it.  Shakespeare,  we  can  imagine,  might  begin  the 
day  upon  a  quart  of  ale,  and  yet  enjoy  the  sunrise  to 

iiS 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

the  full  as  much  as  Thoreau,  and  commemorate  his  en- 
joyment in  vastly  better  verses.  A  man  who  must 
separate  himself  from  his  neighbours'  habits  in  order  to 
be  happy,  is  in  much  the  same  case  with  one  who  re- 
quires to  take  opium  for  the  same  purpose.  What  we 
want  to  see  is  one  who  can  breast  into  the  world,  do  a 
man's  work,  and  still  preserve  his  first  and  pure  enjoy- 
ment of  existence. 

Thoreau's  faculties  were  of  a  piece  with  his  moral 
shyness ;  for  they  were  all  delicacies.  He  could  guide 
himself  about  the  woods  on  the  darkest  night  by  the 
touch  of  his  feet.  He  could  pick  up  at  once  an  exact 
dozen  of  pencils  by  the  feeling,  pace  distances  with 
accuracy,  and  gauge  cubic  contents  by  the  eye.  His 
smell  was  so  dainty  that  he  could  perceive  the  foetor 
of  dwelling-houses  as  he  passed  them  by  at  night;  his 
palate  so  unsophisticated  that,  like  a  child,  he  dis- 
liked the  taste  of  wine  —  or  perhaps,  living  in  America, 
had  never  tasted  any  that  was  good;  and  his  knowl- 
edge of  nature  was  so  complete  and  curious  that  he 
could  have  told  the  time  of  year,  within  a  day  or  so,  by 
the  aspect  of  the  plants.  In  his  dealings  with  animals, 
he  was  the  original  of  Hawthorne's  Donatello.  He 
pulled  the  woodchuck  out  of  its  hole  by  the  tail ;  the 
hunted  fox  came  to  him  for  protection ;  wild  squirrels 
have  been  seen  to  nestle  in  his  waistcoat;  he  would 
thrust  his  arm  into  a  pool  and  bring  forth  a  bright,  pant- 
ing fish,  lying  undismayed  in  the  palm  of  his  hand. 
There  were  few  things  that  he  could  not  do.  He  could 
make  a  house,  a  boat,  a  pencil,  or  a  book.  He  was  a 
surveyor,  a  scholar,  a  natural  historian.  He  could  run, 
walk,  climb,  skate,  swim,  and  manage  a  boat     The 

119 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

smallest  occasion  served  to  display  his  physical  accom- 
plishment; and  a  manufacturer,  from  merely  observing 
his  dexterity  with  the  window  of  a  railway  carriage, 
offered  him  a  situation  on  the  spot.  **The  only  fruit 
of  much  living,"  he  observes,  "is  the  ability  to  do 
some  slight  thing  better. "  But  such  was  the  exactitude 
of  his  senses,  so  alive  was  he  in  every  fibre,  that  it 
seems  as  if  the  maxim  should  be  changed  in  his  case, 
for  he  could  do  most  things  with  unusual  perfection. 
And  perhaps  he  had  an  approving  eye  to  himself  when 
he  wrote:  "Though  the  youth  at  last  grows  indiffer- 
ent, the  laws  of  the  universe  are  not  indifferent,  but  are 
forever  on  the  side  of  the  most  sensitive. 


Thoreau  had  decided,  it  would  seem,  from  the  very 
first  to  lead  a  life  of  self-improvement:  the  needle  did 
not  tremble  as  with  richer  natures,  but  pointed  steadily 
north;  and  as  he  saw  duty  and  inclination  in  one,  he 
turned  all  his  strength  in  that  direction.  He  was  met 
upon  the  threshold  by  a  common  difficulty.  In  this 
world,  in  spite  of  its  many  agreeable  features,  even  the 
most  sensitive  must  undergo  some  drudgery  tc  live.  It 
is  not  possible  to  devote  your  time  to  study  and  medi- 
tation without  what  are  quaintly  but  happily  denomi- 
nated private  means;  these  absent,  a  man  must  contrive 
to  earn  his  bread  by  some  service  to  the  public  such  as 
the  public  cares  to  pay  him  for;  or,  as  Thoreau  loved  to 
put  it,  Apollo  must  serve  Admetus.  This  was  to  Tho- 
reau even  a  sourer  necessity  than  it  is  to  most;  there 
was  a  love  of  freedom,  a  strain  of  the  wild  man,  in  his 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

nature,  that  rebelled  with  violence  against  the  yoke  of 
custom ;  and  he  was  so  eager  to  cultivate  himself  and 
to  be  happy  in  his  own  society,  that  he  could  consent 
with  difficulty  even  to  the  interruptions  of  friendship. 
""  Such  are  my  engagements  to  myself  that  I  dare  not 
promise,"  he  once  wrote  in  answer  to  an  invitation; 
and  the  italics  are  his  own.  Marcus  Aurelius  found  time 
to  study  virtue,  and  between  whiles  to  conduct  the  im- 
perial affairs  of  Rome;  but  Thoreau  is  so  busy  improv- 
ing himself,  that  he  must  think  twice  about  a  morning 
call.  And  now  imagine  him  condemned  for  eight  hours 
a  day  to  some  uncongenial  and  unmeaning  business! 
He  shrank  from  the  very  look  of  the  mechanical  in  life; 
all  should,  if  possible,  be  sweetly  spontaneous  and 
swimmingly  progressive.  Thus  he  learned  to  make 
lead  pencils,  and,  when  he  had  gained  the  best  certifi- 
cate and  his  friends  began  to  congratulate  him  on  his 
establishment  in  life,  calmly  announced  that  he  should 
never  make  another.  **Why  should  I  .^"  said  he;  ''  I 
would  not  do  again  what  I  have  done  once. "  For  when 
a  thing  has  once  been  done  as  well  as  it  wants  to  be,  it 
is  of  no  further  interest  to  the  self-improver.  Yet  in 
after  years,  and  when  it  became  needful  to  support  his 
family,  he  returned  patiently  to  this  mechanical  art  —  a 
step  more  than  worthy  of  himself 

The  pencils  seem  to  have  been  Apollo's  first  experi- 
ment in  the  service  of  Admetus;  but  others  followed. 
**I  have  thoroughly  tried  school-keeping,"  he  writes, 
**and  found  that  my  expenses  were  in  proportion,  or 
rather  out  of  proportion,  to  my  income;  for  I  was 
obliged  to  dress  and  train,  not  to  say  think  and  believe, 
accordingly,  and  I  lost  my  time  into  the  bargain.     As  I 

121 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

did  not  teach  for  the  benefit  of  my  fellow-men,  but  sim- 
ply for  a  livelihood,  this  was  a  failure.  I  have  tried 
trade,  but  I  found  that  it  would  take  ten  years  to  get 
under  way  in  that,  and  that  then  I  should  probably  be 
on  my  way  to  the  devil."  Nothing,  indeed,  can  surpass 
his  scorn  for  all  so-called  business.  Upon  that  subject 
gall  squirts  from  him  at  a  touch.  "The  whole  enter- 
prise of  this  nation  is  not  illustrated  by  a  thought,"  he 
writes;  "it  is  not  warmed  by  a  sentiment;  there  is 
nothing  in  it  for  which  a  man  should  lay  down  his  life, 
nor  even  his  gloves."  And  again:  "If  our  merchants 
did  not  most  of  them  fail,  and  the  banks  too,  my  faith 
in  the  old  laws  of  this  world  would  be  staggered.  The 
statement  that  ninety-six  in  a  hundred  doing  such  busi- 
ness surely  break  down  is  perhaps  the  sweetest  fact 
that  statistics  have  revealed."  The  wish  was  probably 
father  to  the  figures ;  but  there  is  something  enlivening 
in  a  hatred  of  so  genuine  a  brand,  hot  as  Corsican  re- 
venge, and  sneering  like  Voltaire. 

Pencils,  school-keeping,  and  trade  being  thus  dis- 
carded one  after  another,  Thoreau,  with  a  stroke  of 
strategy,  turned  the  position.  He  saw  his  way  to  get 
his  board  and  lodging  for  practically  nothing;  and  Ad- 
metus  never  got  less  work  out  of  any  servant  since  the 
world  began.  It  was  his  ambition  to  be  an  oriental 
philosopher;  but  he  was  always  a  very  Yankee  sort  of 
oriental.  Even  in  the  peculiar  attitude  in  which  he 
stood  to  money,  his  system  of  personal  economics,  as 
we  may  call  it,  he  displayed  a  vast  amount  of  truly 
down-East  calculation,  and  he  adopted  poverty  like  a 
piece  of  business.  Yet  his  system  is  based  on  one  or 
two  ideas  which,  I  believe,  come  naturally  to  all  thought- 

123 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

ful  youths,  and  are  only  pounded  out  of  them  by  city 
uncles.  Indeed,  something  essentially  youthful  distin- 
guishes all  Thoreau's  knock-down  blows  at  current 
opinion.  Like  the  posers  of  a  child,  they  leave  the  or- 
thodox in  a  kind  of  speechless  agony.  These  know  the 
thing  is  nonsense.  They  are  sure  there  must  be  an  an- 
swer, yet  somehow  cannot  find  it.  So  it  is  with  his 
system  of  economy.  He  cuts  through  the  subject  on 
so  new  a  plane  that  the  accepted  arguments  apply  no 
longer;  he  attacks  it  in  a  new  dialect  where  there  are 
no  catchwords  ready  made  for  the  defender;  after  you 
have  been  boxing  for  years  on  a  polite,  gladiatorial  con- 
vention, here  is  an  assailant  who  does  not  scruple  to 
hit  below  the  belt. 

"The  cost  of  a  thing,"  says  he,  "is  the  amount  of 
what  I  will  call  life  which  is  required  to  be  exchanged 
for  it,  immediately  or  in  the  long  run."  I  have  been 
accustomed  to  put  it  to  myself,  perhaps  more  clearly, 
that  the  price  we  have  to  pay  for  money  is  paid  in  lib- 
erty. Between  these  two  ways  of  it,  at  least,  the  reader 
will  probably  not  fail  to  find  a  third  definition  of  his 
own ;  and  it  follows,  on  one  or  other,  that  a  man  may 
pay  too  dearly  for  his  livelihood,  by  giving,  in  Thoreau's 
terms,  his  whole  life  for  it,  or,  in  mine,  bartering  for  it 
the  whole  of  his  available  liberty,  and  becoming  a  slave 
till  death.  There  are  two  questions  to  be  considered  — 
the  quality  of  what  we  buy,  and  the  price  we  have  to 
pay  for  it.  Do  you  want  a  thousand  a  year,  a  two 
thousand  a  year,  or  a  ten  thousand  a  year  livelihood  ? 
and  can  you  afford  the  one  you  want  ?  It  is  a  matter  of 
taste;  it  is  not  in  the  least  degree  a  question  of  duty, 
though  commonly  supposed  so.     But  there  is  no  au- 

123 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

thority  for  that  view  anywhere.  It  is  nowhere  in  the 
Bible.  It  is  true  that  we  might  do  a  vast  amount  of 
good  if  we  were  wealthy,  but  it  is  also  highly  improb- 
able; not  many  do;  and  the  art  of  growing  rich  is  not 
only  quite  distinct  from  that  of  doing  good,  but  the 
practice  of  the  one  does  not  at  all  train  a  man  for  prac- 
tising the  other.  "  Money  might  be  of  great  service  to 
me,"  writes  Thoreau;  "but  the  difficulty  now  is  that  I 
do  not  improve  my  opportunities,  and  therefore  I  am 
not  prepared  to  have  my  opportunities  increased."  It  is 
a  mere  illusion  that,  above  a  certain  income,  the  personal 
desires  will  be  satisfied  and  leave  a  wider  margin  for  the 
generous  impulse.  It  is  as  difficult  to  be  generous,  or 
anything  else,  except  perhaps  a  member  of  Parliament, 
on  thirty  thousand  as  on  two  hundred  a  year. 

Now  Thoreau's  tastes  were  well  defined.  He  loved 
to  be  free,  to  be  master  of  his  times  and  seasons,  to  in- 
dulge the  mind  rather  than  the  body ;  he  preferred  long 
rambles  to  rich  dinners,  his  own  reflections  to  the  con- 
sideration of  society,  and  an  easy,  calm,  unfettered,  ac- 
tive life  among  green  trees  to  dull  toiling  at  the  counter 
of  a  bank.  And  such  being  his  inclination  he  deter- 
mined to  gratify  it.  A  poor  man  must  save  off  some- 
thing ;  he  determined  to  save  off  his  livelihood.  '  *  When 
a  man  has  attained  those  things  which  are  necessary  to 
life,"  he  writes,  *' there  is  another  alternative  than  to 
obtain  the  superfluities;  he  may  adventure  on  life  now, 
his  vacation  from  humbler  toil  having  commenced." 
Thoreau  would  get  shelter,  some  kind  of  covering  for 
his  body,  and  necessary  daily  bread;  even  these  he 
should  get  as  cheaply  as  possible ;  and  then,  his  vaca- 
tion from  humbler  toil  having  commenced,  devote  him- 

124 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

self  to  oriental  philosophers,  the  study  of  nature,  and  the 
work  of  self-improvement. 

Prudence,  which  bids  us  all  go  to  the  ant  for  wis- 
dom and  hoard  against  the  day  of  sickness,  was  not  a  fa- 
vourite with  Thoreau.  He  preferred  that  other,  whose 
name  is  so  much  misappropriated:  Faith.  When  he 
had  secured  the  necessaries  of  the  moment,  he  would 
not  reckon  up  possible  accidents  or  torment  himself 
with  trouble  for  the  future.  He  had  no  toleration  for 
the  man  "who  ventures  to  live  only  by  the  aid  of  the 
mutual  insurance  company,  which  has  promised  to  bury 
him  decently."  He  would  trust  himself  a  little  to  the 
world.  **We  mky  safely  trust  a  good  deal  more  than 
we  do,"  says  he.  "How  much  is  not  done  by  us!  or 
what  if  we  had  been  taken  sick  ?  "  And  then,  with  a 
stab  of  satire,  he  describes  contemporary  mankind  in  a 
phrase:  "All  the  day  long  on  the  alert,  at  night  we 
unwillingly  say  our  prayers  and  commit  ourselves  to 
uncertainties."  It  is  not  likely  that  the  public  will  be 
much  affected  by  Thoreau,  when  they  blink  the  direct 
injunctions  of  the  religion  they  profess;  and  yet,  whether 
we  will  or  no,  we  make  the  same  hazardous  ventures; 
we  back  our  own  health  and  the  honesty  of  our  neigh- 
bours for  all  that  we  are  worth ;  and  it  is  chilling  to  think 
how  many  must  lose  their  wager. 

In  1845,  twenty-eight  years  old,  an  age  by  which  the 
liveliest  have  usually  declined  into  some  conformity 
with  the  world,  Thoreau,  with  a  capital  of  something 
less  than  five  pounds  and  a  borrowed  axe,  walked  forth 
into  the  woods  by  Walden  Pond,  and  began  his  new 
experiment  in  life.  He  built  himself  a  dwelling,  and 
returned  the  axe,  he  says  with  characteristic  and  work- 

125 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

man-like  pride,  sharper  than  when  he  borrowed  it;  he 
reclaimed  a  patch,  where  he  cultivated  beans,  peas, 
potatoes,  and  sweet  corn;  he  had  his  bread  to  bake, 
his  farm  to  dig,  and  for  the  matter  of  six  weeks  in  the 
summer  he  worked  at  surveying,  carpentry,  or  some 
other  of  his  numerous  dexterities,  for  hire.  For  more 
than  five  years,  this  was  all  that  he  required  to  do  for  his 
support,  and  he  had  the  winter  and  most  of  the  summer 
at  his  entire  disposal.  For  six  weeks  of  occupation,  a 
little  cooking  and  a  little  gentle  hygienic  gardening, 
the  man,  you  may  say,  had  as  good  as  stolen  his  liveli- 
hood. Or  we  must  rather  allow  that  he  had  done  far 
better;  for  the  thief  himself  is  continually  and  busily  oc- 
cupied; and  even  one  born  to  inherit  a  million  will  have 
more  calls  upon  his  time  than  Thoreau.  Well  might  he 
say,  '*  What  old  people  tell  you  you  cannot  do,  you  try 
and  find  you  can."  And  how  surprising  is  his  con- 
clusion: "I  am  convinced  that  to  maintain  oneself  on 
this  earth  is  not  a  hardship,  but  a  pastime,  if  we  will 
live  simply  and  wisely ;  as  the  pursuits  of  simpler  na- 
tions are  stiU  the  sports  of  the  more  artificial. ' ' 

When  he  had  enough  of  that  kind  of  life,  he  showed 
the  same  simplicity  in  giving  it  up  as  in  beginning  it. 
There  are  some  who  could  have  done  the  one,  but, 
vanity  forbidding,  not  the  other;  and  that  is  perhaps 
the  story  of  the  hermits ;  but  Thoreau  made  no  fetich  of 
his  own  example,  and  did  what  he  wanted  squarely. 
And  five  years  is  long  enough  for  an  experiment  and  to 
prove  the  success  of  transcendental  Yankeeism.  It  is 
not  his  frugality  which  is  worthy  of  note;  for,  to  begin 
with,  that  was  inborn,  and  therefore  inimitable  by  others 
who  are  differently  constituted;  and  again,  it  was  no 

\i6 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Tiew  thing,  but  has  often  been  equalled  by  poor  Scotch 
students  at  the  universities.  The  point  is  the  sanity  of 
his  view  of  life,  and  the  insight  with  which  he  recog- 
nised the  position  of  money,  and  thought  out  for  him- 
self the  problem  of  riches  and  a  livelihood.  Apart  from 
his  eccentricities,  he  had  perceived,  and  was  acting  on, 
a  truth  of  universal  application.  For  money  enters  in 
two  different  characters  into  the  scheme  of  life.  A  cer- 
tain amount,  varying  with  the  number  and  empire  of 
our  desires,  is  a  true  necessary  to  each  one  of  us  in  the 
present  order  of  society;  but  beyond  that  amount, 
money  is  a  commodity  to  be  bought  or  not  to  be 
bought,  a  luxury  in  which  we  may  either  indulge  or 
stint  ourselves,  like  any  other.  And  there  are  many 
luxuries  that  we  may  legitimately  prefer  to  it,  such  as  a 
grateful  conscience,  a  country  life,  or  the  woman  of  our 
inclination.  Trite,  flat,  and  obvious  as  this  conclusion 
may  appear,  we  have  only  to  look  round  us  in  society 
to  see  how  scantily  it  has  been  recognised ;  and  perhaps 
even  ourselves,  after  a  little  reflection,  may  decide  to 
spend  a  trifle  less  for  money,  and  indulge  ourselves  a 
trifle  more  in  the  article  of  freedom. 


Ill 

**  To  have  done  anything  by  which  you  earned  money 
merely,"  says  Thoreau,  "is  to  be "  (have  been,  he 
means)  ''idle  and  worse."  There  are  two  passages  in 
his  letters,  both,  oddly  enough,  relating  to  firewood, 
which  must  be  brought  together  to  be  rightly  under- 
stood. So  taken,  they  contain  between  them  the  mar- 
Tow  of  all  good  sense  on  the  subject  of  work  in  its  rela- 

127 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

tion  to  something  broader  than  mere  livelihood.  Here 
is  the  first:  "I  suppose  I  have  burned  up  a  good-sized 
tree  to-night  —  and  for  what?  I  settled  with  Mr.  Tar- 
bell  for  it  the  other  day,  but  that  wasn't  the  final  settle- 
ment. I  got  off  cheaply  from  him.  At  last  one  will 
say :  '  Let  us  see,  how  much  wood  did  you  burn,  sir  ? ' 
And  I  shall  shudder  to  think  that  the  next  question  will 
be,  '  What  did  you  do  while  you  were  warm  ? '  "  Even 
after  we  have  settled  with  Admetus  in  the  person  of 
Mr.  Tarbell,  there  comes,  you  see,  a  further  question. 
It  is  not  enough  to  have  earned  our  livelihood.  Either 
the  earning  itself  should  have  been  serviceable  to  man- 
kind, or  something  else  must  follow.  To  live  is  some- 
times very  difficult,  but  it  is  never  meritorious  in  itself; 
and  we  must  have  a  reason  to  allege  to  our  own  con- 
science why  we  should  continue  to  exist  upon  this 
crowded  earth.  If  Thoreau  had  simply  dwelt  in  his 
house  at  Walden,  a  lover  of  trees,  birds,  and  fishes,  and 
the  open  air  and  virtue,  a  reader  of  wise  books,  an  idle, 
selfish  self-improver,  he  would  have  managed  to  cheat 
Admetus,  but,  to  cling  to  metaphor,  the  devil  would 
have  had  him  in  the  end.  Those  who  can  avoid  toil 
altogether  and  dwell  in  the  Arcadia  of  private  means, 
and  even  those  who  can,  by  abstinence,  reduce  the  nec- 
essary amount  of  it  to  some  six  weeks  a  year,  having 
the  more  liberty,  have  only  the  higher  moral  obligation 
to  be  up  and  doing  in  the  interest  of  man. 

The  second  passage  is  this :  **  There  is  a  far  more  im- 
portant and  warming  heat,  commonly  lost,  which  pre- 
cedes the  burning  of  the  wood.  It  is  the  smoke  of  in- 
dustry, which  is  incense.  I  had  been  so  thoroughly 
warmed  in  body  and  spirit,  that  when  at  length  my  fuel' 

128 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

was  housed,  I  came  near  selling  it  to  the  ashman,  as  if 
I  had  extracted  all  its  heat."  Industry  is,  in  itself  and 
when  properly  chosen,  delightful  and  profitable  to  the 
worker;  and  when  your  toil  has  been  a  pleasure,  you 
have  not,  as  Thoreau  says,  "earned  money  merely," 
but  money,  health,  delight,  and  moral  profit,  all  in  one. 
**We  must  heap  up  a  great  pile  of  doing  for  a  small  di- 
ameter of  being,"  he  says  in  another  place;  and  then  ex- 
claims, "  How  admirably  the  artist  is  made  to  accomplish 
his  self-culture  by  devotion  to  his  art!"  We  may  es- 
cape uncongenial  toil,  only  to  devote  ourselves  to  that 
which  is  congenial.  It  is  only  to  transact  some  higher 
business  that  even  Apollo  dare  play  the  truant  from  Ad- 
metus.  We  must  all  work  for  the  sake  of  work ;  we 
must  all  work,  as  Thoreau  says  again,  in  any  "absorb- 
ing pursuit — it  does  not  much  matter  what,  so  it  be 
honest;"  but  the  most  profitable  work  is  that  which 
combines  into  one  continued  effort  the  largest  propor- 
tion of  the  powers  and  desires  of  a  man's  nature;  that 
into  which  he  will  plunge  with  ardour,  and  from  which 
he  will  desist  with  reluctance ;  in  which  he  will  know 
the  weariness  of  fatigue,  but  not  that  of  satiety;  and 
which  will  be  ever  fresh,  pleasing,  and  stimulating  to 
his  taste.  Such  work  holds  a  man  together,  braced  at 
all  points;  it  does  not  suffer  him  to  doze  or  wander;  it 
keeps  him  actively  conscious  of  himself,  yet  raised  among 
superior  interests;  it  gives  him  the  profit  of  industry 
with  the  pleasures  of  a  pastime.  This  is  what  his  art 
should  be  to  the  true  artist,  and  that  to  a  degree  un- 
known in  other  and  less  intimate  pursuits.  For  other 
professions  stand  apart  from  the  human  business  of  life ; 
but  an  art  has  its  seat  at  the  centre  of  the  artist's  doings 

129 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

and  sufferings,  deals  directly  with  his  experiences, 
teaches  him  the  lessons  of  his  own  fortunes  and  mis- 
haps, and  becomes  a  part  of  his  biography.  So  says 
Goethe : 

"  Spat  erklingt  was  frilh  erklang; 
GIQck  und  Ungliick  wird  Gesang." 

Now  Thoreau's  art  was  literature ;  and  it  was  one  of 
which  he  had  conceived  most  ambitiously.  He  loved 
and  believed  in  good  books.  He  said  well,  **  Life  is  not 
habitually  seen  from  any  common  platform  so  truly  and 
unexaggerated  as  in  the  light  of  literature. "  But  the  lit- 
erature he  loved  was  of  the  heroic  order.  '*  Books,  not 
which  afford  us  a  cowering  enjoyment,  but  in  which  each 
thought  is  of  unusual  daring;  such  as  an  idle  man  can- 
not read,  and  a  timid  one  would  not  be  entertained  by, 
which  even  make  us  dangerous  to  existing  institutions — 
such  I  call  good  books."  He  did  not  think  them  easy 
to  be  read.  **The  heroic  books,"  he  says,  *'even  if 
printed  in  the  character  of  our  mother-tongue,  will  al- 
ways be  in  a  language  dead  to  degenerate  times;  and 
we  must  laboriously  seek  the  meaning  of  each  word 
and  line,  conjecturing  a  larger  sense  than  common  use 
permits  out  of  what  wisdom  and  valour  and  generosity 
we  have."  Nor  does  he  suppose  that  such  books  are 
easily  written.  "  Great  prose,  of  equal  elevation,  com- 
mands our  respect  more  than  great  verse,"  says  he, 
*' since  it  implies  a  more  permanent  and  level  height,  a 
life  more  pervaded  with  the  grandeur  of  the  thought. 
The  poet  often  only  makes  an  irruption,  like  the  Parthian, 
and  is  off  again,  shooting  while  he  retreats;  but  the 
prose  writer  has  conquered  like  a  Roman  and  settled 

130 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

colonies."  We  may  ask  ourselves,  almost  with  dismay, 
whether  such  works  exist  at  all  but  in  the  imagination 
of  the  student.  For  the  bulk  of  the  best  of  books  is 
apt  to  be  made  up  with  ballast;  and  those  in  which  en- 
ergy of  thought  is  combined  with  any  stateliness  of  ut- 
terance may  be  almost  counted  on  the  fingers.  Look- 
ing round  in  English  for  a  book  that  should  answer 
Thoreau's  two  demands  of  a  style  like  poetry  and  sense 
that  shall  be  both  original  and  inspiriting,  I  come  to 
Milton's  Areopagitica,  and  can  name  no  other  instance 
for  the  moment.  Two  things  at  least  are  plain :  that  if 
a  man  will  condescend  to  nothing  more  commonplace 
in  the  way  of  reading,  he  must  not  look  to  have  a  large 
library;  and  that  if  he  proposes  himself  to  write  in  a 
similar  vein,  he  will  find  his  work  cut  out  for  him. 

Thoreau  composed  seemingly  while  he  walked,  or  at 
least  exercise  and  composition  were  with  him  intimately 
connected ;  for  we  are  told  that  "the  length  of  his  walk 
uniformly  made  the  length  of  his  writing."  He  speaks 
in  one  place  of  "  plainness  and  vigor,  the  ornaments  of 
style,"  which  is  rather  too  paradoxical  to  be  compre- 
hensively true.  In  another  he  remarks:  "As  for  style 
of  writing,  if  one  has  anything  to  say  it  drops  from  him 
simply  as  a  stone  falls  to  the  ground."  We  must 
conjecture  a  very  large  sense  indeed  for  the  phrase  "  if 
one  has  anything  to  say."  When  truth  flows  from  a 
man,  fittingly  clothed  in  style  and  without  conscious 
effort,  it  is  because  the  effort  has  been  made  and  the 
work  practically  completed  before  he  sat  down  to  write. 
It  is  only  out  of  fulness  of  thinking  that  expression  drops 
perfect  like  a  ripe  fruit ;  and  when  Thoreau  wrote  so  non- 
chalantly at  his  desk,  it  was  because  he  had  been  vigor- 

131 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ously  active  during  his  walk.  For  neither  clearness, 
compression,  nor  beauty  of  language,  come  to  any  liv- 
ing creature  till  after  a  busy  and  a  prolonged  acquaint- 
ance with  the  subject  on  hand.  Easy  writers  are  those 
who,  like  Walter  Scott,  choose  to  remain  contented 
with  a  less  degree  of  perfection  than  is  legitimately 
within  the  compass  of  their  powers.  We  hear  of 
Shakespeare  and  his  clean  manuscript;  but  in  face  of 
the  evidence  of  the  style  itself  and  of  the  various  editions 
of  Hamlet,  this  merely  proves  that  Messrs.  Hemming 
and  Condell  were  unacquainted  with  the  common 
enough  phenomenon  called  a  fair  copy.  He  who  would 
recast  a  tragedy  already  given  to  the  world  must  fre- 
quently and  earnestly  have  revised  details  in  the  study. 
Thoreau  himself,  and  in  spite  of  his  protestations,  is  an 
instance  of  even  extreme  research  in  one  direction ;  and 
his  effort  after  heroic  utterance  is  proved  not  only  by 
the  occasional  finish,  but  by  the  determined  exaggera- 
tion of  his  style.  **  I  trust  you  realize  what  an  exagger- 
ator  I  am  —  that  I  lay  myself  out  to  exaggerate,"  he 
writes.  And  again,  hinting  at  the  explanation:  "Who 
that  has  heard  a  strain  of  music  feared  lest  he  should 
speak  extravagantly  any  more  forever  ?  "  And  yet  once 
more,  in  his  essay  on  Carlyle,  and  this  time  with  his 
meaning  well  in  hand:  **No  truth,  we  think,  v/as  ever 
expressed  but  with  this  sort  of  emphasis,  that  for  the 
time  there  seemed  to  be  no  other."  Thus  Thoreau  was 
an  exaggerative  and  a  parabolical  writer,  not  because  he 
loved  the  literature  of  the  East,  but  from  a  desire  that 
people  should  understand  and  realise  what  he  was  writ- 
ing. He  was  near  the  truth  upon  the  general  question; 
but  in  his  own  particular  method,  it  appears  to  me,  he 

132 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

wandered.  Literature  is  not  less  a  conventional  art 
than  painting  or  sculpture;  and  it  is  the  least  striking, 
as  it  is  the  most  comprehensive  of  the  three.  To  hear 
a  strain  of  music,  to  see  a  beautiful  woman,  a  river,  a 
great  city,  or  a  starry  night,  is  to  make  a  man  despair 
of  his  Lilliputian  arts  in  language.  Now,  to  gain  that 
emphasis  which  seems  denied  to  us  by  the  very  nature 
of  the  medium,  the  proper  method  of  literature  is  by  se- 
lection, which  is  a  kind  of  negative  exaggeration.  It  is 
the  right  of  the  literary  artist,  as  Thoreau  was  on  the 
point  of  seeing,  to  leave  out  whatever  does  not  suit  his 
purpose.  Thus  we  extract  the  pure  gold ;  and  thus  the 
well- written  story  of  a  noble  life  becomes,  by  its  very 
•omissions,  more  thrilling  to  the  reader.  But  to  go  be- 
yond this,  like  Thoreau,  and  to  exaggerate  directly,  is 
to  leave  the  saner  classical  tradition,  and  to  put  the 
reader  on  his  guard.  And  when  you  write  the  whole 
for  the  half,  you  do  not  express  your  thought  more 
forcibly,  but  only  express  a  different  thought  which  is 
not  yours. 

Thoreau's  true  subject  was  the  pursuit  of  self-im- 
provement combined  with  an  unfriendly  criticism  of  life 
as  it  goes  on  in  our  societies ;  it  is  there  that  he  best  dis- 
plays the  freshness  and  surprising  trenchancy  of  his  intel- 
lect ;  it  is  there  that  his  style  becomes  plain  and  vigor- 
ous, and  therefore,  according  to  his  own  formula,  orna- 
mental. Yet  he  did  not  care  to  follow  this  vein  singly, 
but  must  drop  into  it  by  the  way  in  books  of  a  different 
purport.  IValden,  or  Life  in  the  Woods,  A  Week  on 
the  Concord  and  Merrimack  Rivers,  The  Maine  Woods, 
—  such  are  the  titles  he  affects.  He  was  probably  re- 
minded by  his  delicate  critical  perception  that  the  true 

U3 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

business  of  literature  is  with  narrative ;  in  reasoned  nar- 
rative, and  there  alone,  that  art  enjoys  all  its  advantages, 
and  suffers  least  from  its  defects.  Dry  precept  and  dis- 
embodied disquisition,  as  they  can  only  be  read  with  an 
effort  of  abstraction,  can  never  convey  a  perfectly  com- 
plete or  a  perfectly  natural  impression.  Truth,  even  in 
literature,  must  be  clothed  with  flesh  and  blood,  or  it 
cannot  tell  its  whole  story  to  the  reader.  Hence  the  ef- 
fect of  anecdote  on  simple  minds ;  and  hence  good  biog- 
raphies and  works  of  high,  imaginative  art,  are  not  only 
far  more  entertaining,  but  far  more  edifying,  than  books 
of  theory  or  precept.  Now  Thoreau  could  not  clothe 
his  opinions  in  the  garment  of  art,  for  that  was  not  his 
talent;  but  he  sought  to  gain  the  same  elbow-room  for 
himself,  and  to  afford  a  similar  relief  to  his  readers,  by 
mingling  his  thoughts  with  a  record  of  experience. 

Again,  he  was  a  lover  of  nature.  The  quality  which 
we  should  call  mystery  in  a  painting,  and  which  belongs 
so  particularly  to  the  aspect  of  the  external  world  and  to 
its  influence  upon  our  feelings,  was  one  which  he  was 
never  weary  of  attempting  to  reproduce  in  his  books. 
The  seeming  significance  of  nature's  appearances,  their 
unchanging  strangeness  to  the  senses,  and  the  thrilling 
response  which  they  waken  in  the  mind  of  man,  con- 
tinued to  surprise  and  stimulate  his  spirits.  It  appeared 
to  him,  I  think,  that  if  we  could  only  write  near  enough 
to  the  facts,  and  yet  with  no  pedestrian  calm,  but  ar- 
dently, we  might  transfer  the  glamour  of  reality  direct 
upon  our  pages;  and  that,  if  it  were  once  thus  captured 
and  expressed,  a  new  and  instructive  relation  might  ap- 
pear between  men's  thoughts  and  the  phenomena  of 
nature.     This  was  the  eagle  that  he  pursued  all  his  life 

»34 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

long,  like  a  schoolboy  with  a  butterfly  net.  Hear  him  to 
a  friend:  " Let  me  suggest  a  theme  for  you  —  to  state 
to  yourself  precisely  and  completely  what  that  walk 
over  the  mountains  amounted  to  for  you,  returning  to 
this  essay  again  and  again  until  you  are  satisfied  that 
all  that  was  important  in  your  experience  is  in  it.  Don't 
suppose  that  you  can  tell  it  precisely  the  first  dozen 
times  you  try,  but  at  'em  again ;  especially  when,  after 
a  sufficient  pause,  you  suspect  that  you  are  touching 
the  heart  or  summit  of  the  matter,  reiterate  your  blows 
there,  and  account  for  the  mountain  to  yourself.  Not 
that  the  story  need  be  long,  but  it  will  take  a  long 
while  to  make  it  short."  Such  was  the  method,  not 
consistent  for  a  man  whose  meanings  were  to  "drop 
from  him  as  a  stone  falls  to  the  ground."  Perhaps  the 
most  successful  work  that  Thoreau  ever  accomplished 
in  this  direction  is  to  be  found  in  the  passages  relating 
to  fish  in  the  Week.  These  are  remarkable  for  a  vivid 
truth  of  impression  and  a  happy  suitability  of  language, 
not  frequently  surpassed. 

Whatever  Thoreau  tried  to  do  was  tried  in  fair,  square 
prose,  with  sentences  solidly  built,  and  no  help  from 
bastard  rhythms.  Moreover,  there  is  a  progression  —  I 
cannot  call  it  a  progress  —  in  his  work  toward  a  more 
and  more  strictly  prosaic  level,  until  at  last  he  sinks  into 
the  bathos  of  the  prosy.  Emerson  mentions  having 
once  remarked  to  Thoreau:  **Who  would  not  like  to 
write  something  which  all  can  read,  like  Robinson  Cru~ 
see  ?  and  who  does  not  see  with  regret  that  his  page  is 
not  solid  with  a  right  materialistic  treatment  which 
delights  everybody  ?"  I  must  say  in  passing  that  it  is 
not  the  right  materialistic  treatment  which  delights  the 

135 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

world  in  Robinson,  but  the  romantic  and  philosophic 
interest  of  the  fable.  The  same  treatment  does  quite 
the  reverse  of  delighting  us  when  it  is  applied,  in  Col- 
onel  Jack,  to  the  management  of  a  plantation.  But  I 
cannot  help  suspecting  Thoreau  to  have  been  influenced 
either  by  this  identical  remark  or  by  some  other  closely 
similar  in  meaning.  He  began  to  fall  more  and  more 
into  a  detailed  materialistic  treatment;  he  went  into  the 
business  doggedly,  as  one  who  should  make  a  guide- 
book; he  not  only  chronicled  what  had  been  important 
in  his  own  experience,  but  whatever  might  have  been 
important  in  the  experience  of  anybody  else;  not  only 
what  had  affected  him,  but  all  that  he  saw  or  heard. 
His  ardour  had  grown  less,  or  perhaps  it  was  inconsist- 
ent with  a  right  materialistic  treatment  to  display  such 
emotions  as  he  felt  ;  and,  to  complete  the  eventful 
change,  he  chose,  from  a  sense  of  moral  dignity,  to  gut 
these  later  works  of  the  saving  quality  of  humour.  He 
was  not  one  of  those  authors  who  have  learned,  in  his 
own  words,  "to  leave  out  their  dulness."  He  inflicts 
his  full  quantity  upon  the  reader  in  such  books  as  Cape 
Cod,  or  The  Yankee  in  Canada.  Of  the  latter  he  con- 
fessed that  he  had  not  managed  to  get  much  of  himself 
into  it.  Heaven  knows  he  had  not,  nor  yet  much  of 
Canada,  we  may  hope.  "Nothing,"  he  says  some- 
where, "can  shock  a  brave  man  but  dulness."  Well, 
there  are  few  spots  more  shocking  to  the  brave  than  the 
pages  of  The  Yankee  in  Canada. 

There  are  but  three  books  of  his  that  will  be  read  with 
much  pleasure:  the  Week,  Walden,  and  the  collected 
letters.  As  to  his  poetry,  Emerson's  word  shall  suffice 
for  us,  it  is  so  accurate  and  so  prettily  said:  "The  thyme 

136 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

and  marjoram  are  not  yet  honey."  In  this,  as  in  his 
prose,  he  relied  greatly  on  the  goodwill  of  the  reader, 
and  wrote  throughout  in  faith.  It  was  an  exercise  of 
faith  to  suppose  that  many  would  understand  the  sense 
of  his  best  work,  or  that  any  could  be  exhilarated  by 
the  dreary  chronicling  of  his  worst.  *'  But,"  as  he  says, 
**the  gods  do  not  hear  any  rude  or  discordant  sound, 
as  we  learn  from  the  echo ;  and  I  know  that  the  nature 
toward  which  I  launch  these  sounds  is  so  rich  that  it 
will  modulate  anew  and  wonderfully  improve  my  rudest 
strain." 

IV 

"What  means  the  fact,"  he  cries,  **that  a  soul 
which  has  lost  all  hope  for  itself  can  inspire  in  another 
listening  soul  such  an  infinite  confidence  in  it,  even 
while  it  is  expressing  its  despair?"  The  question  is 
an  echo  and  an  illustration  of  the  words  last  quoted; 
and  it  forms  the  key-note  of  his  thoughts  on  friend- 
ship. No  one  else,  to  my  knowledge,  has  spoken  in 
so  high  and  just  a  spirit  of  the  kindly  relations ;  and 
I  doubt  whether  it  be  a  drawback  that  these  lessons 
should  come  from  one  in  many  ways  so  unfitted  to  be 
a  teacher  in  this  branch.  The  very  coldness  and  egoism 
of  his  own  intercourse  gave  him  a  clearer  insight  into 
the  intellectual  basis  of  our  warm,  mutual  tolerations ; 
and  testimony  to  their  worth  comes  with  added  force 
from  one  who  was  solitary  and  disobliging,  and  of 
whom  a  friend  remarked,  with  equal  wit  and  wisdom, 
**  I  love  Henry,  but  I  cannot  like  him." 

He  can  hardly  be  persuaded  to  make  any  distinctior 
between  love  and  friendship ;  in  such  rarefied  and  freer 

>37 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ing  air,  upon  the  mountain-tops  of  meditation,  had  he 
taught  himself  to  breathe.  He  was,  indeed,  too  accu- 
rate an  observer  not  to  have  remarked  that  ''there  ex- 
ists already  a  natural  disinterestedness  and  liberality  " 
between  men  and  women;  yet,  he  thought,  "friend- 
ship is  no  respecter  of  sex."  Perhaps  there  is  a  sense 
in  which  the  words  are  true;  but  they  were  spoken  in 
ignorance;  and  perhaps  we  shall  have  put  the  matter 
most  correctly,  if  we  call  love  a  foundation  for  a  nearer 
and  freer  degree  of  friendship  than  can  be  possible  with- 
out it.  For  there  are  delicacies,  eternal  between  per- 
sons of  the  same  sex,  which  are  melted  and  disappear 
in  the  warmth  of  love. 

To  both,  if  they  are  to  be  right,  he  attributes  the 
same  nature  and  condition.  "We  are  not  what  we 
are,"  says  he,  "nor  do  we  treat  or  esteem  each  other 
for  such,  but  for  what  we  are  capable  of  being."  "A 
friend  is  one  who  incessantly  pays  us  the  compliment 
of  expecting  all  the  virtues  from  us,  and  who  can  ap- 
preciate them  in  us."  "The  friend  asks  no  return  but 
that  his  friend  will  religiously  accept  and  wear  and  not 
disgrace  his  apotheosis  of  him."  "It  is  the  merit  and 
preservation  of  friendship  that  it  takes  place  on  a  level 
higher  than  the  actual  characters  of  the  parties  would 
seem  to  warrant."  This  is  to  put  friendship  on  a  ped- 
estal indeed;  and  yet  the  root  of  the  matter  is  there; 
and  the  last  sentence,  in  particular,  is  like  a  light  in  a 
dark  place,  and  makes  many  mysteries  plain.  We  are 
different  with  different  friends ;  yet  if  we  look  closely 
we  shall  find  that  every  such  relation  reposes  on  some 
particular  apotheosis  of  oneself;  with  each  friend,  al- 
though we  could  not  distinguish  it  in  words  from  any 

138 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Other,  we  have  at  least  one  special  reputation  to  pre- 
serve: and  it  is  thus  that  we  run,  when  mortified,  to 
our  friend  or  the  woman  that  we  love,  not  to  hear  our- 
selves called  better,  but  to  be  better  men  in  point  of 
fact.  We  seek  this  society  to  flatter  ourselves  with  our 
own  good  conduct.  And  hence  any  falsehood  in  the 
relation,  any  incomplete  or  perverted  understanding, 
will  spoil  even  the  pleasure  of  these  visits.  Thus  says 
Thoreau  again :  **  Only  lovers  know  the  value  of  truth." 
And  yet  again:  **  They  ask  for  words  and  deeds,  when 
a  true  relation  is  word  and  deed." 

But  it  follows  that  since  they  are  neither  of  them  so 
good  as  the  other  hopes,  and  each  is,  in  a  very  honest 
manner,  playing  a  part  above  his  powers,  such  an  inter- 
course must  often  be  disappointing  to  both.  **  We  may 
bid  farewell  sooner  than  complain, "says  Thoreau,  "for 
our  complaint  is  too  well  grounded  to  be  uttered. "  * '  We 
have  not  so  good  a  right  to  hate  any  as  our  friend." 

"  It  were  treason  to  our  love 
And  a  sin  to  God  above, 
One  iota  to  abate 
Of  a  pure,  impartial  hate." 

Love  is  not  blind,  nor  yet  forgiving.  "  O  yes,  believe 
me,"  as  the  song  says,  **  Love  has  eyes  !  "  The  nearer 
the  intimacy,  the  more  cuttingly  do  we  feel  the  unwor- 
thiness  of  those  we  love ;  and  because  you  love  one, 
and  would  die  for  that  love  to-morrow,  you  have  not 
forgiven,  and  you  never  will  forgive,  that  friend's  mis- 
conduct. If  you  want  a  person's  faults,  go  to  those  who 
love  him.  They  will  not  tell  you,  but  they  know.  And 
herein  lies  the  magnanimous  courage  of  love,  that  it  en- 
dures this  knowledge  without  change. 

139 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

It  required  a  cold,  distant  personality  like  that  of  The- 
reau,  perhaps,  to  recognise  and  certainly  to  utter  this 
truth ;  for  a  more  human  love  makes  it  a  point  of  hon- 
our not  to  acknowledge  those  faults  of  which  it  is  most 
conscious.  But  his  point  of  view  is  both  high  and  dry. 
He  has  no  illusions;  he  does  not  give  way  to  love  any 
more  than  to  hatred,  but  preserves  them  both  with  care 
like  valuable  curiosities.  A  more  bald-headed  picture 
of  life,  if  I  may  so  express  myself,  has  seldom  been  pre- 
sented. He  is  an  egoist;  he  does  not  remember,  or 
does  not  think  it  worth  while  to  remark,  that,  in  these 
near  intimacies,  we  are  ninety-nine  times  disappointed 
in  our  beggarly  selves  for  once  that  we  are  disappointed 
in  our  friend ;  that  it  is  we  who  seem  most  frequently 
undeserving  of  the  love  that  unites  us ;  and  that  it  is  by 
our  friend's  conduct  that  we  are  continually  rebuked 
and  yet  strengthened  for  a  fresh  endeavour.  Thoreau 
is  dry,  priggish,  and  selfish.  It  is  profit  he  is  after  in 
these  intimacies ;  moral  profit,  certainly,  but  still  profit 
to  himself.  If  you  will  be  the  sort  of  friend  I  want,  he 
remarks  naively,  "  my  education  cannot  dispense  with 
your  society."  His  education!  as  though  a  friend  were 
a  dictionary.  And  with  all  this,  not  one  word  about 
pleasure,  or  laughter,  or  kisses,  or  any  quality  of  flesh 
and  blood.  It  was  not  inappropriate,  surely,  that  he 
had  such  close  relations  with  the  fish.  We  can  under- 
stand the  friend  already  quoted,  when  he  cried:  "As 
for  taking  his  arm,  I  would  as  soon  think  of  taking  the 
arm  of  an  elm-tree! " 

As  a  matter  of  fact  he  experienced  but  a  broken  en- 
joyment in  his  intimacies.  He  says  he  has  been  per- 
petually on  the  brink  of  the  sort  of  intercourse  he 

140 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

-wanted,  and  yet  never  completely  attained  it.  And 
what  else  had  he  to  expect  when  he  would  not,  in  a 
happy  phrase  of  Carlyle's,  '* nestle  down  into  it?" 
Truly,  so  it  will  be  always  if  you  only  stroll  in  upon 
your  friends  as  you  might  stroll  in  to  see  a  cricket 
match;  and  even  then  not  simply  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  thing,  but  with  some  after-thought  of  self-im- 
provement, as  though  you  had  come  to  the  cricket 
match  to  bet.  It  was  his  theory  that  people  saw  each 
other  too  frequently,  so  that  their  curiosity  was  not 
properly  whetted,  nor  had  they  anything  fresh  to  com- 
municate; but  friendship  must  be  something  else  than 
a  society  for  mutual  improvement  —  indeed,  it  must  only 
be  that  by  the  way,  and  to  some  extent  unconsciously ; 
and  if  Thoreau  had  been  a  man  instead  of  a  manner  of 
elm-tree,  he  would  have  felt  that  he  saw  his  friends  too 
seldom,  and  have  reaped  benefits  unknown  to  his  phi- 
losophy from  a  more  sustained  and  easy  intercourse. 
We  might  remind  him  of  his  own  words  about  love : 
**  We  should  have  no  reserve ;  we  should  give  the  whole 
of  ourselves  to  that  business.  But  commonly  men  have 
not  imagination  enough  to  be  thus  employed  about  a 
human  being,  but  must  be  coopering  a  barrel,  forsooth." 
Ay,  or  reading  oriental  philosophers.  It  is  not  the  na- 
ture of  the  rival  occupation,  it  is  the  fact  that  you  suffer 
it  to  be  a  rival,  that  renders  loving  intimacy  impossible. 
Nothing  is  given  for  nothing  in  this  world;  there  can  be 
no  true  love,  even  on  your  own  side,  without  devotion ; 
devotion  is  the  exercise  of  love,  by  which  it  grows;  but 
if  you  will  give  enough  of  that,  if  you  will  pay  the  price 
in  a  sufficient  ''amount  of  what  you  call  life,"  why 
then,  indeed,  whether  with  wife  or  comrade,  you  may 

141 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

have  months  and  even  years  of  such  easy,  natural,  pleas- 
urable, and  yet  improving  intercourse  as  shall  make 
time  a  moment  and  kindness  a  delight. 

The  secret  of  his  retirement  lies  not  in  misanthropy, 
of  which  he  had  no  tincture,  but  part  in  his  engrossing 
design  of  self-improvement  and  part  in  the  real  defi- 
ciencies of  social  intercourse.  He  v^as  not  so  much 
difficult  about  his  fellow  human  beings  as  he  could  not 
tolerate  the  terms  of  their  association.  He  could  take 
to  a  man  for  any  genuine  qualities,  as  we  see  by  his 
admirable  sketch  of  the  Canadian  woodcutter  in  Walden; 
but  he  would  not  consent,  in  his  own  words,  to  ''feebly 
fabulate  and  paddle  in  the  social  slush."  It  seemed  to 
him,  I  think,  that  society  is  precisely  the  reverse  of 
friendship,  in  that  it  takes  place  on  a  lower  level  than 
the  characters  of  any  of  the  parties  would  warrant  us  to 
expect.  The  society  talk  of  even  the  most  brilliant  man 
is  of  greatly  less  account  than  what  you  will  get  from 
him  in  (as  the  French  say)  a  little  committee.  And 
Thoreau  wanted  geniality;  he  had  not  enough  of  the 
superficial,  even  at  command ;  he  could  not  swoop  into 
a  parlour  and,  in  the  naval  phrase,  *'  cut  out "  a  human 
being  from  that  dreary  port;  nor  had  he  inclination  for 
the  task.  I  suspect  he  loved  books  and  nature  as  well 
and  near  as  warmly  as  he  loved  his  fellow-creatures,  — 
a  melancholy,  lean  degeneration  of  the  human  char- 
acter. 

*' As  for  the  dispute  about  solitude  and  society,"  he 
thus  sums  up:  "Any  comparison  is  impertinent.  It  is 
an  idling  down  on  the  plain  at  the  base  of  the  mountain 
instead  of  climbing  steadily  to  its  top.  Of  course  you 
will  be  glad  of  all  the  society  you  can  get  to  go  up  with  ? 

14a 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Will  you  go  to  glory  with  me?  is  the  burden  of  the 
song.  It  is  not  that  we  love  to  be  alone,  but  that  we 
love  to  soar,  and  when  we  do  soar  the  company  grows 
thinner  and  thinner  till  there  is  none  at  all.  It  is  either 
the  tribune  on  the  plain,  a  sermon  on  the  mount,  or  a 
very  private  ecstasy  still  higher  up.  Use  all  the  society 
that  will  abet  you."  But  surely  it  is  no  very  extrava- 
gant opinion  that  it  is  better  to  give  than  to  receive,  to 
serve  than  to  use  our  companions ;  and  above  all,  where 
there  is  no  question  of  service  upon  either  side,  that  it  is 
good  to  enjoy  their  company  like  a  natural  man.  It  is 
curious  and  in  some  ways  dispiriting  that  a  writer  may 
be  always  best  corrected  out  of  his  own  mouth ;  and  so, 
to  conclude,  here  is  another  passage  from  Thoreau 
which  seems  aimed  directly  at  himself:  '*  Do  not  be  too 
moral;  you  may  cheat  yourself  out  of  much  life  so  .  .  . 
All  fables,  indeed,  have  their  morals;  but  the  innocent 
enjoy  the  story. ' ' 


'The  only  obligation,"  says  he,  ''which  I  have  a 
right  to  assume  is  to  do  at  any  time  what  I  think  right." 
"  Why  should  we  ever  go  abroad,  even  across  the  way, 
to  ask  a  neighbour's  advice.?"  "There  is  a  nearer 
neighbour  within,  who  is  incessantly  telling  us  how  we 
should  behave,  ^ut  we  wait  for  the  neighbour  without 
to  tell  us  of  some  false,  easier  way, "  "The  greater  part 
of  what  my  neighbours  call  good  I  believe  in  my  soul 
to  be  bad."  To  be  what  we  are,  and  to  become  what 
we  are  capable  of  becoming,  is  the  only  end  of  life.  It 
is  "  when  we  fall  behind  ourselves  "  that  "we  are  cursed 
with  duties  and  the  neglect  of  duties."     "I  love  the 

143 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

wild,"  he  says,  " not  less  than  the  good."  And  again: 
**The  life  of  a  good  man  will  hardly  improve  us  more 
than  the  life  of  a  freebooter,  for  the  inevitable  laws  ap- 
pear as  plainly  in  the  infringement  as  in  the  observance, 
and  "  (mark  this)  ''  our  lives  are  sustained  by  a  nearly 
equal  expense  of  virtue  of  some  kind. ' '  Even  although 
he  were  a  prig,  it  will  be  owned  he  could  announce  a 
startling  doctrine.  "As  for  doing  good,"  he  writes 
elsewhere,  "that  is  one  of  the  professions  that  are  full. 
Moreover,  I  have  tried  it  fairly,  and,  strange  as  it  may 
seem,  am  satisfied  that  it  does  not  agree  with  my  con- 
stitution. Probably  I  should  not  conscientiously  and 
deliberately  forsake  my  particular  calling  to  do  the  good 
which  society  demands  of  me,  to  save  the  universe  from 
annihilation;  and  I  believe  that  a  like  but  infinitely 
greatersteadfastness  elsewhere  is  all  that  now  preserves  it. 
If  you  should  ever  be  betrayed  into  any  of  these  philan- 
thropies, do  not  let  your  left  hand  know  what  your 
right  hand  does,  for  it  is  not  worth  knowing."  Else- 
where he  returns  upon  the  subject,  and  explains  his 
meaning  thus:  "  If  I  ever  did  a  man  any  good  in  their 
sense,  of  course  it  was  something  exceptional  and  insig- 
nificant compared  with  the  good  or  evil  I  am  constantly 
doing  by  being  what  I  am." 

There  is  a  rude  nobility,  like  that  of  a  barbarian  king, 
in  this  unshaken  confidence  in  himself  and  indifference 
to  the  wants,  thoughts,  or  sufferings  of  others.  In  his 
whole  works  I  find  no  trace  of  pity.  This  was  partly 
the  result  of  theory,  for  he  held  the  world  too  mysteri- 
ous to  be  criticised,  and  asks  conclusively :  "  What  right 
have  I  to  grieve  who  have  not  ceased  to  wonder  ?  "  But 
it  sprang  still  more  from  constitutional  indifference  and 

>44 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

superiority;  and  lie  grew  up  healthy,  composed,  and 
unconscious  from  among  life's  horrors,  like  a  green  bay- 
tree  from  a  field  of  battle.  It  was  from  this  lack  in  him- 
self that  he  failed  to  do  justice  to  the  spirit  of  Christ;  for 
while  he  could  glean  more  meaning  from  individual  pre- 
cepts than  any  score  of  Christians,  yet  he  conceived  life 
in  such  a  different  hope,  and  viewed  it  with  such  con- 
trary emotions,  that  the  sense  and  purport  of  the  doc- 
trine as  a  whole  seems  to  have  passed  him  by  or  left 
him  unimpressed.  He  could  understand  the  idealism 
of  the  Christian  view,  but  he  was  himself  so  unaffect- 
edly unhuman  that  he  did  not  recognise  the  human  in- 
tention and  essence  of  that  teaching.  Hence  he  com- 
plained that  Christ  did  not  leave  us  a  rule  that  was 
proper  and  sufficient  for  this  world,  not  having  con- 
ceived the  nature  of  the  rule  that  was  laid  down;  for 
things  of  that  character  that  are  sufficiently  unaccept- 
able become  positively  non-existent  to  the  mind.  But 
perhaps  we  shall  best  appreciate  the  defect  in  Thoreau 
by  seeing  it  supplied  in  the  case  of  Whitman.  For  the 
one,  I  feel  confident,  is  the  disciple  of  the  other;  it  is 
what  Thoreau  clearly  whispered  that  Whitman  so  up- 
roariously bawls;  it  is  the  same  doctrine,  but  with  how 
immense  a  difference!  the  same  argument,  but  used  to 
what  a  new  conclusion !  Thoreau  had  plenty  of  humour 
until  he  tutored  himself  out  of  it,  and  so  forfeited  that 
best  birthright  of  a  sensible  man ;  Whitman,  in  that  re- 
spect, seems  to  have  been  sent  into  the  world  naked 
and  unashamed;  and  yet  by  a  strange  consummation, 
it  is  the  theory  of  the  former  that  is  arid,  abstract, 
and  claustral.  Of  these  two  philosophies  so  nearly 
identical  at  bottom,  the  one  pursues  Self-improvement 

>45 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

—  a  churlish,  mangy  dog;  the  other  is  up  with  the 
morning,  in  the  best  of  health,  and  following  the  nymph 
Happiness,  buxom,  blithe,  and  debonair.  Happiness, 
at  least,  is  not  solitary;  it  joys  to  communicate;  it  loves 
others,  for  it  depends  on  them  for  its  existence ;  it  sanc- 
tions and  encourages  to  all  delights  that  are  not  unkind 
in  themselves;  if  it  lived  to  a  thousand,  it  would  not 
make  excision  of  a  single  humorous  passage;  and  while 
the  self-improver  dwindles  toward  the  prig,  and,  if  he 
be  not  of  an  excellent  constitution,  may  even  grow  de- 
formed into  an  Obermann,  the  very  name  and  appear- 
ance of  a  happy  man  breathe  of  good-nature,  and  help 
the  rest  of  us  to  live. 

In  the  case  of  Thoreau,  so  great  a  show  of  doctrine 
demands  some  outcome  in  the  field  of  action.  If  noth- 
ing were  to  be  done  but  build  a  shanty  beside  Walden 
Pond,  we  have  heard  altogether  too  much  of  these  dec- 
larations of  independence.  That  the  man  wrote  some 
books  is  nothing  to  the  purpose,  for  the  same  has  been 
done  in  a  suburban  villa.  That  he  kept  himself  happy 
is  perhaps  a  sufficient  excuse,  but  it  is  disappointing  to 
the  reader.  We  may  be  unjust,  but  when  a  man  de- 
spises commerce  and  philanthropy  alike,  and  has  views 
of  good  so  soaring  that  he  must  take  himself  apart  from 
mankind  for  their  cultivation,  we  will  not  be  content 
without  some  striking  act.  It  was  not  Thoreau's  fault  if 
he  were  not  martyred ;  had  the  occasion  come,  he  would 
have  made  a  noble  ending.  As  it  is,  he  did  once  seek 
to  interfere  in  the  world's  course ;  he  made  one  practical 
appearance  on  the  stage  of  affairs;  and  a  strange  one  it 
was,  and  strangely  characteristic  of  the  nobility  and  the 
eccentricity  of  the  man.   It  was  forced  on  him  by  his  calm 

146 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

but  radical  opposition  to  negro  slavery.  ' '  Voting  for 
the  right  is  doing  nothing  for  it,"  he  saw;  *'it  is  only 
expressing  to  men  feebly  your  desire  that  it  should  pre- 
vail." For  his  part,  he  would  not  '*  for  an  instant  recog- 
nise that  political  organisation  for  his  government  which 
is  the  slave's  government  also."  'M  do  not  hesitate 
to  say,"  he  adds,  ''that  those  who  call  themselves  Ab- 
olitionists should  at  once  effectually  withdraw  their 
support,  both  in  person  and  property,  from  the  govern- 
ment of  Massachusetts."  That  is  what  he  did:  in  1843 
he  ceased  to  pay  the  poll-tax.  The  highway-tax  he 
paid,  for  he  said  he  was  as  desirous  to  be  a  good  neigh- 
bour as  to  be  a  bad  subject ;  but  no  more  poll-tax  to  the 
State  of  Massachusetts.  Thoreau  had  now  seceded, 
and  was  a  polity  unto  himself;  or,  as  he  explains  it 
with  admirable  sense,  "  In  fact,  I  quietly  declare  war 
with  the  State  after  my  fashion,  though  I  will  still  make 
what  use  and  get  what  advantage  of  her  I  can,  as  is 
usual  in  such  cases."  He  was  put  in  prison;  but  that 
was  a  part  of  his  design.  *'  Under  a  government  which 
imprisons  any  unjustly,  the  true  place  for  a  just  man  is 
also  a  prison.  I  know  this  well,  that  if  one  thousand, 
if  one  hundred,  if  ten  men  whom  I  could  name  —  ay, 
if  one  HONEST  man,  in  this  State  of  Massachusetts,  ceas- 
ing to  hold  slaves,  were  actually  to  withdraw  from  this 
copartnership,  and  be  locked  up  in  the  county  jail  there- 
for, it  would  be  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  America.  For 
it  matters  not  how  small  the  beginning  may  seem  to  be; 
what  is  once  well  done  is  done  forever."  Such  was  his 
theory  of  civil  disobedience. 

And  the  upshot?    A  friend  paid  the  tax  for  him; 
continued  year  by  year  to  pay  it  in  the  sequel;  and 

M7 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND    BOOKS 

Thoreau  was  free  to  walk  the  woods  unmolested.  It 
VJ^S2i  fiasco,  but  to  me  it  does  not  seem  laughable;  even 
those  who  joined  in  the  laughter  at  the  moment  would 
be  insensibly  affected  by  this  quaint  instance  of  a  good 
man's  horror  for  injustice.  We  may  compute  the  worth 
of  that  one  night's  imprisonment  as  outweighing  half  a 
hundred  voters  at  some  subsequent  election:  and  if 
Thoreau  had  possessed  as  great  a  power  of  persuasion  as 
(let  us  say)  Falstaff,  if  he  had  counted  a  party  however 
small,  if  his  example  had  been  followed  by  a  hundred 
or  by  thirty  of  his  fellows,  I  cannot  but  believe  it  would 
have  greatly  precipitated  the  era  of  freedom  and  justice. 
We  feel  the  misdeeds  of  our  country  with  so  little  fer- 
vour, for  we  are  not  witnesses  to  the  suffering  they 
cause;  but  when  we  see  them  wake  an  active  horror  in 
our  fellow-man,  when  we  see  a  neighbour  prefer  to  lie 
in  prison  rather  than  be  so  much  as  passively  implicated 
in  their  perpetration,  even  the  dullest  of  us  will  begin  to 
realise  them  with  a  quicker  pulse. 

Not  far  from  twenty  years  later,  when  Captain  John 
Brown  was  taken  at  Harper's  Ferry,  Thoreau  was  the 
first  to  come  forward  in  his  defence.  The  committees 
wrote  to  him  unanimously  that  his  action  was  prema- 
ture. '*  I  did  not  send  to  you  for  advice,"  said  he,  "but 
to  announce  that  I  was  to  speak."  I  have  used  the 
word  *' defence";  in  truth  he  did  not  seek  to  defend 
him,  even  declared  it  would  be  better  for  the  good 
cause  that  he  should  die;  but  he  praised  his  action  as  I 
think  Brown  would  have  liked  to  hear  it  praised. 

Thus  this  singularly  eccentric  and  independent  mind, 
wedded  to  a  character  of  so  much  strength,  singleness, 
and  purity,  pursued  its  own  path  of  self-improvement 

148 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

for  more  than  half  a  century,  part  gymnosophist,  part 
backwoodsman ;  and  thus  did  it  come  twice,  though  in 
a  subaltern  attitude,  into  the  field  of  political  history. 

Note.  —  For  many  facts  in  the  above  essay,  among  which  I  may 
mention  the  incident  of  the  squirrel,  I  am  indebted  to  Thoreau :  His 
Life  and  Aims,  by  J.  A.  Page,  or,  as  is  well  known,  Dr.  Japp. 


«49 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

THE  name  at  the  head  of  this  page  is  probably  un- 
known to  the  English  reader,  and  yet  I  think  it 
should  become  a  household  word  like  that  of  Garibaldi 
or  John  Brown.  Some  day  soon,  we  may  expect  to 
hear  more  fully  the  details  of  Yoshida's  history,  and  the 
degree  of  his  influence  in  the  transformation  of  Japan ; 
even  now  there  must  be  Englishmen  acquainted  with 
the  subject,  and  perhaps  the  appearance  of  this  sketch 
may  elicit  something  more  complete  and  exact.  I  wish 
to  say  that  I  am  not,  rightly  speaking,  the  author  of  the 
present  paper:  I  tell  the  story  on  the  authority  of  an  in- 
telligent Japanese  gentleman,  Mr.  Taiso  Masaki,  who 
told  it  me  with  an  emotion  that  does  honour  to  his 
heart;  and  though  1  have  taken  some  pains,  and  sent 
my  notes  to  him  to  be  corrected,  this  can  be  no  more 
than  an  imperfect  outline. 

Yoshida-Torajiro  was  son  to  the  hereditary  military 
instructor  of  the  house  of  Choshu.  The  name  you  are 
to  pronounce  with  an  equality  of  accent  on  the  different 
syllables,  almost  as  in  French,  the  vowels  as  in  Italian, 
but  the  consonants  in  the  English  manner  —  except  the 
j,  which  has  the  French  sound,  or,  as  it  has  been  cleverly 
proposed  to  write  it,  the  sound  of  ^/i.     Yoshida  was 

150 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

very  learned  in  Chinese  letters,  or,  as  we  might  say,  in 
the  classics,  and  in  his  father's  subject;  fortification  was 
among  his  favourite  studies,  and  he  was  a  poet  from  his 
boyhood.  He  was  born  to  a  lively  and  intelligent  pa- 
triotism ;  the  condition  of  Japan  was  his  great  concern ; 
and  while  he  projected  a  better  future,  he  lost  no  oppor- 
tunity of  improving  his  knowledge  of  her  present  state. 
With  this  end  he  was  continually  travelling  in  his  youth, 
going  on  foot  and  sometimes  with  three  days'  provision 
on  his  back,  in  the  brave,  self-helpful  manner  of  all 
heroes.  He  kept  a  full  diary  while  he  was  thus  upon 
his  journeys,  but  it  is  feared  that  these  notes  have  been 
destroyed.  If  their  value  were  in  any  respect  such  as 
we  have  reason  to  expect  from  the  man's  character,  this 
would  be  a  loss  not  easy  to  exaggerate.  It  is  still  won- 
derful to  the  Japanese  how  far  he  contrived  to  push  these 
explorations ;  a  cultured  gentleman  of  that  land  and  pe- 
riod would  leave  a  complimentary  poem  wherever  he 
had  been  hospitably  entertained;  and  a  friend  of  Mr. 
Masaki,  who  was  likewise  a  great  wanderer,  has  found 
such  traces  of  Yoshida's  passage  in  very  remote  regions 
of  Japan. 

Politics  is  perhaps  the  only  profession  for  which  no 
preparation  is  thought  necessary ;  but  Yoshida  consid- 
ered otherwise,  and  he  studied  the  miseries  of  his  fellow- 
countrymen  with  as  much  attention  and  research  as 
though  he  had  been  going  to  write  a  book  instead  of 
merely  to  propose  a  remedy.  To  a  man  of  his  intensity 
and  singleness,  there  is  no  question  but  that  this  survey 
was  melancholy  in  the  extreme.  His  dissatisfaction  is 
proved  by  the  eagerness  with  which  he  threw  himself 
into  the  cause  of  reform ;  and  what  would  have  discour- 

»5» 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

aged  another  braced  Yoshida  for  his  task.  As  he  pro- 
fessed the  theory  of  arms,  it  was  firstly  the  defences  of 
Japan  that  occupied  his  mind.  The  external  feebleness 
of  that  country  was  then  illustrated  by  the  manners  of 
overriding  barbarians,  and  the  visits  of  big  barbarian 
war  ships :  she  was  a  country  beleaguered.  Thus  the 
patriotism  of  Yoshida  took  a  form  which  may  be  said  to 
have  defeated  itself:  he  had  it  upon  him  to  keep  out 
these  all-powerful  foreigners,  whom  it  is  now  one  of 
his  chief  merits  to  have  helped  to  introduce ;  but  a  man 
who  follows  his  own  virtuous  heart  will  be  always 
found  in  the  end  to  have  been  fighting  for  the  best. 
One  thing  leads  naturally  to  another  in  an  awakened 
mind,  and  that  with  an  upward  progress  from  effect  to 
cause.  The  power  and  knowledge  of  these  foreigners 
were  things  inseparable ;  by  envying  them  their  military 
strength,  Yoshida  came  to  envy  them  their  culture; 
from  the  desire  to  equal  them  in  the  first,  sprang  his  de- 
sire to  share  with  them  in  the  second ;  and  thus  he  is 
found  treating  in  the  same  book  of  a  new  scheme  to 
strengthen  the  defences  of  Kioto  and  of  the  establish- 
ment, in  the  same  city,  of  a  university  of  foreign  teach- 
ers. He  hoped,  perhaps,  to  get  the  good  of  other  lands 
without  their  evil ;  to  enable  Japan  to  profit  by  the  know- 
ledge of  the  barbarians,  and  still  keep  her  inviolate  with 
her  own  arts  and  virtues.  But  whatever  was  the  pre- 
cise nature  of  his  hope,  the  means  by  which  it  was  to 
be  accomplished  were  both  difficult  and  obvious.  Some 
one  with  eyes  and  understanding  must  break  through 
the  official  cordon,  escape  into  the  new  world,  and  study 
this  other  civilization  on  the  spot.  And  who  could  be 
better  suited  for  the  business  ?     It  was  not  without 

15a 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

danger,  but  he  was  without  fear.  It  needed  preparation 
and  insight;  and  what  had  he  done  since  he  was  a 
child  but  prepare  himself  with  the  best  culture  of  Japan, 
and  acquire  in  his  excursions  the  power  and  habit  of 
observing  ? 

He  was  but  twenty-two,  and  already  all  this  was  clear 
in  his  mind,  when  news  reached  Choshu  that  Com- 
modore Perry  was  lying  near  to  Yeddo.  Here,  then, 
was  the  patriot's  opportunity.  Among  the  Samurai  of 
Choshu,  and  in  particular  among  the  councillors  of  the 
Daimio,  his  general  culture,  his  views,  which  the  en- 
lightened were  eager  to  accept,  and,  above  all,  the  pro- 
phetic charm,  the  radiant  persuasion  of  the  man,  had 
gained  him  many  and  sincere  disciples.  He  had  thus  a 
strong  influence  at  the  provincial  Court;  and  so  he  ob- 
tained leave  to  quit  the  district,  and,  by  way  of  a  pretext, 
a  privilege  to  follow  his  profession  in  Yeddo.  Thither 
he  hurried,  and  arrived  in  time  to  be  too  late :  Perry  had 
Weighed  anchor,  and  his  sails  had  vanished  from  the 
waters  of  Japan.  But  Yoshida,  having  put  his  hand  to 
the  plough,  was  not  the  man  to  go  back;  he  had  entered 
upon  this  business,  and,  please  God,  he  would  carry  it 
through ;  and  so  he  gave  up  his  professional  career  and 
remained  in  Yeddo  to  be  at  hand  against  the  next  op- 
portunity. By  this  behaviour  he  put  himself  into  an  at- 
titude toward  his  superior,  the  Daimio  of  Choshu,  which 
I  cannot  thoroughly  explain.  Certainly,  he  became  a 
Ronyin,  a  broken  man,  a  feudal  outlaw;  certainly  he 
was  liable  to  be  arrested  if  he  set  foot  upon  his  native 
province;  yet  1  am  cautioned  that  "he  did  not  really 
break  his  allegiance,"  but  only  so  far  separated  himself 
as  that  the  prince  could  no  longer  be  held  accountable 

153 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

for  his  late  vassal's  conduct.  There  is  some  nicety 
of  feudal  custom  here  that  escapes  my  comprehension. 

In  Yeddo,  with  this  nondescript  political  status,  and 
cut  off  from  any  means  of  livelihood,  he  was  joyfully 
supported  by  those  who  sympathised  with  his  design. 
One  was  Sakuma-Shozan,  hereditary  retainer  of  one  of 
the  Shogun's  councillors,  and  from  him  he  got  more 
than  money  or  than  money's  worth.  A  steady,  respect- 
able man,  with  an  eye  to  the  world's  opinion,  Sakuma 
was  one  of  those  who,  if  they  cannot  do  great  deeds  in 
their  own  person,  have  yet  an  ardour  of  admiration  for 
those  who  can,  that  recommends  them  to  the  gratitude 
of  history.  They  aid  and  abet  greatness  more,  perhaps, 
than  we  imagine.  One  thinks  of  them  in  connection 
with  Nicodemus,  who  visited  our  Lord  by  night.  And 
Sakuma  was  in  a  position  to  help  Yoshida  more  practi- 
cally than  by  simple  countenance;  for  he  could  read 
Dutch,  and  was  eager  to  communicate  what  he  knew. 

While  the  young  Ronyin  thus  lay  studying  in  Yed- 
do, news  came  of  a  Russian  ship  at  Nangasaki.  No 
time  was  to  be  lost.  Sakuma  contributed  "a  long 
copy  of  encouraging  verses;"  and  off  set  Yoshida  on 
foot  for  Nangasaki.  His  way  lay  through  his  own 
province  of  Choshu;  but,  as  the  highroad  to  the  south 
lay  apart  from  the  capital,  he  was  able  to  avoid  arrest. 
He  supported  himself,  like  a  trouvere,  by  his  proficiency 
in  verse.  He  carried  his  works  along  with  him,  to 
serve  as  an  introduction.  When  he  reached  a  town  he 
would  inquire  for  the  house  of  any  one  celebrated  for 
swordsmanship,  or  poetry,  or  some  of  the  other  ac- 
knowledged forms  of  culture;  and  there,  on  giving  a 
taste  of  his  skill,  he  would  be  received  and  entertained, 

154 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

and  leave  behind  him,  when  he  went  away,  a  compli- 
ment in  verse.  Thus  he  travelled  through  the  Middle 
Ages  on  his  voyage  of  discovery  into  the  nineteenth 
century.  When  he  reached  Nangasaki  he  was  once 
more  too  late.  The  Russians  were  gone.  But  he  made 
a  profit  on  his  journey  in  spite  of  fate,  and  stayed  awhile 
to  pick  up  scraps  of  knowledge  from  the  Dutch  inter- 
preters —  a  low  class  of  men,  but  one  that  had  oppor- 
tunities; and  then,  still  full  of  purpose,  returned  to 
Yeddo  on  foot,  as  he  had  come.  It  was  not  only  his 
youth  and  courage  that  supported  him  under  these  suc- 
cessive disappointments,  but  the  continual  affluence  of 
new  disciples.  The  man  had  the  tenacity  of  a  Bruce  or 
a  Columbus,  with  a  pliability  that  was  all  his  own. 
He  did  not  fight  for  what  the  world  would  call  success ; 
but  for  "the  wages  of  going  on."  Check  him  off  in  a 
dozen  directions,  he  would  find  another  outlet  and 
break  forth.  He  missed  one  vessel  after  another,  and 
the  main  work  still  halted ;  but  so  long  as  he  had  a  sin- 
gle Japanese  to  enlighten  and  prepare  for  the  better  fu- 
ture, he  could  still  feel  that  he  was  working  for  Japan. 
Now,  he  had  scarce  returned  from  Nangasaki,  when  he 
was  sought  out  by  a  new  inquirer,  the  most  promising 
of  all.  This  was  a  common  soldier,  of  the  Hemming 
class,  a  dyer  by  birth,  who  had  heard  vaguely^  of  Yo- 

1  Yoshida,  when  on  his  way  to  Nangasaki,  met  the  soldier  and  talked 
with  him  by  the  roadside;  they  then  parted,  but  the  soldier  was  so 
much  struck  by  the  words  he  heard,  that  on  Yoshida's  return  he  sought 
him  out  and  declared  his  intention  of  devoting  his  life  to  the  good 
cause.  I  venture,  in  the  absence  of  the  writer,  to  insert  this  correction, 
having  been  present  when  the  story  was  told  by  Mr.  Masaki. —  F.  J, 
And  I,  there  being  none  to  settle  the  difference,  must  reproduce  both 
versions. —  R.  L.  S. 

155 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

shida's  movements,  and  had  become  filled  with  wonder 
as  to  their  design.  This  was  a  far  different  inquirer 
from  Sakuma-Shozan,  or  the  councillors  of  the  Daimio 
of  Choshu.  This  was  no  two-sworded  gentleman,  but 
the  common  stuff  of  the  country,  born  in  low  tradi- 
tions and  unimproved  by  books ;  and  yet  that  influence, 
that  radiant  persuasion  that  never  failed  Yoshida  in  any 
circumstance  of  his  short  life,  enchanted,  enthralled,  and 
converted  the  common  soldier,  as  it  had  done  already 
with  the  elegant  and  learned.  The  man  instantly  burned 
up  into  a  true  enthusiasm;  his  mind  had  been  only 
waiting  for  a  teacher;  he  grasped  in  a  moment  the 
profit  of  these  new  ideas ;  he,  too,  would  go  to  foreign, 
outlandish  parts,  and  bring  back  the  knowledge  that 
was  to  strengthen  and  renew  Japan;  and  in  the  mean- 
time, that  he  might  be  the  better  prepared,  Yoshida  set 
himself  to  teach,  and  he  to  learn,  the  Chinese  literature. 
It  is  an  episode  most  honourable  to  Yoshida,  and  yet 
more  honourable  still  to  the  soldier,  and  to  the  capacity 
and  virtue  of  the  common  people  of  Japan. 

And  now,  at  length.  Commodore  Perry  returned  to 
Simoda.  Friends  crowded  round  Yoshida  with  help, 
counsels,  and  encouragement.  One  presented  him 
with  a  great  sword,  three  feet  long  and  very  heavy, 
which,  in  the  exultation  of  the  hour,  he  swore  to  carry 
throughout  all  his  wanderings,  and  to  bring  back  —  a 
far-travelled  weapon — to  Japan.  A  long  letter  was 
prepared  in  Chinese  for  the  American  officers;  it  was 
revised  and  corrected  by  Sakuma,  and  signed  by  Yoshi- 
da, under  the  name  of  Urinaki-Manji,  and  by  the  sol- 
dier under  that  of  Ichigi-Koda.  Yoshida  had  supplied 
himself  with  a  profusion  of  materials  for  writing;  his 

156 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

dress  was  literally  stuffed  with  paper  which  was  to 
come  back  again  enriched  with  his  observations,  and 
make  a  great  and  happy  kingdom  of  Japan.  Thus 
equipped,  this  pair  of  emigrants  set  forward  on  foot 
from  Yeddo,  and  reached  Simoda  about  nightfall.  At 
no  period  within  history  can  travel  have  presented  to 
any  European  creature  the  same  face  of  awe  and  ter- 
ror as  to  these  courageous  Japanese.  The  descent  of 
Ulysses  into  hell  is  a  parallel  more  near  the  case  than 
the  boldest  expedition  in  the  polar  circles.  For  their 
act  was  unprecedented;  it  was  criminal;  and  it  was  to 
take  them  beyond  the  pale  of  humanity  into  a  land  of 
devils.  It  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  they  were  thrilled 
by  the  thought  of  their  unusual  situation ;  and  perhaps 
the  soldier  gave  utterance  to  the  sentiment  of  both 
when  he  sang,  *'in  Chinese  singing"  (so  that  we  see 
he  had  already  profited  by  his  lessons ),  these  two  ap- 
propriate verses: 

"  We  do  not  know  where  we  are  to  sleep  to-night, 
In  a  thousand  miles  of  desert  where  we  can  see  no  human  smoke." 

In  a  little  temple,  hard  by  the  sea-shore,  they  lay 
down  to  repose;  sleep  overtook  them  as  they  lay;  and 
when  they  awoke,  ''the  east  was  already  white"  for 
their  last  morning  in  Japan.  They  seized  a  fisherman's 
boat  and  rowed  out — Perry  lying  far  to  sea  because 
of  the  two  tides.  Their  very  manner  of  boarding  was 
significant  of  determination;  for  they  had  no  sooner 
caught  hold  upon  the  ship  than  they  kicked  away  their 
boat  to  make  return  impossible.  And  now  you  would 
have  thought  that  all  was  over.  But  the  Commodore 
was  already  in  treaty  with  the  Shogun's  Government; 

157 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

it  was  one  of  the  stipulations  that  no  Japanese  was  to 
be  aided  in  escaping  from  Japan ;  and  Yoshida  and  his 
followers  were  handed  over  as  prisoners  to  the  author- 
ities at  Simoda.  That  night  he  who  had  been  to  ex- 
plore the  secrets  of  the  barbarian  slept,  if  he  might 
sleep  at  all,  in  a  cell  too  short  for  lying  down  at  full 
length,  and  too  low  for  standing  upright.  There  are 
some  disappointments  too  great  for  commentary. 

Sakuma,  implicated  by  his  handwriting,  was  sent 
into  his  own  province  in  confinement,  from  which  he 
was  soon  released.  Yoshida  and  the  soldier  suffered  a 
long  and  miserable  period  of  captivity,  and  the  latter, 
indeed,  died,  while  yet  in  prison,  of  a  skin  disease.  But 
such  a  spirit  as  that  of  Yoshida-Torajiro  is  not  easily 
made  or  kept  a  captive;  and  that  which  cannot  be 
broken  by  misfortune  you  shall  seek  in  vain  to  confine 
in  a  bastille.  He  was  indefatigably  active,  writing  re- 
ports to  Government  and  treatises  for  dissemination. 
These  latter  were  contraband ;  and  yet  he  found  no  diffi- 
culty in  their  distribution,  for  he  always  had  the  jailer 
on  his  side.  It  was  in  vain  that  they  kept  changing  him 
from  one  prison  to  another;  Government  by  that  plan 
only  hastened  the  spread  of  new  ideas ;  for  Yoshida  had 
only  to  arrive  to  make  a  convert.  Thus,  though  he 
himself  was  laid  by  the  heels,  he  confirmed  and  extended 
his  party  in  the  State. 

At  last,  after  many  lesser  transferences,  he  was  given 
over  from  the  prisons  of  the  Shogun  to  those  of  his  own 
superior,  the  Daimio  of  Choshu.  I  conceive  it  possible 
that  he  may  then  have  served  out  his  time  for  the  at- 
tempt to  leave  Japan,  and  was  now  resigned  to  the  pro- 
vincial Government  on  a  lesser  count,  as  a  Ronyin  or 

158 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

feudal  rebel.  But,  however  that  may  be,  the  change 
was  of  great  importance  to  Yoshida;  for  by  the  influ- 
ence of  his  admirers  in  the  Daimio's  council,  he  was 
allowed  the  privilege,  underhand,  of  dwelling  in  his 
own  house.  And  there,  as  well  to  keep  up  communi- 
cation with  his  fellow-reformers  as  to  pursue  his  work 
of  education,  he  received  boys  to  teach.  It  must  not 
be  supposed  that  he  was  free;  he  was  too  marked  a 
man  for  that ;  he  was  probably  assigned  to  some  small 
circle,  and  lived,  as  we  should  say,  under  police  surveil- 
lance ;  but  to  him,  who  had  done  so  much  from  under 
lock  and  key,  this  would  seem  a  large  and  profitable 
liberty. 

It  was  at  this  period  that  Mr.  Masaki  was  brought 
into  personal  contact  with  Yoshida;  and  hence,  through 
the  eyes  of  a  boy  of  thirteen,  we  get  one  good  look  at 
the  character  and  habits  of  the  hero.  He  was  ugly  and 
laughably  disfigured  with  the  small-pox;  and  while  na- 
ture had  been  so  niggardly  with  him  from  the  first,  his 
personal  habits  were  even  sluttish.  His  clothes  were 
wretched;  when  he  ate  or  washed  he  wiped  his  hands 
upon  his  sleeves ;  and  as  his  hair  was  not  tied  more 
than  once  in  the  two  months,  it  was  often  disgusting 
to  behold.  With  such  a  picture,  it  is  easy  to  believe 
that  he  never  married.  A  good  teacher,  gentle  in  act, 
although  violent  and  abusive  in  speech,  his  lessons  were 
apt  to  go  over  the  heads  of  his  scholars,  and  to  leave 
them  gaping,  or  more  often  laughing.  Such  was  his 
passion  for  study  that  he  even  grudged  himself  natural 
repose;  and  when  he  grew  drowsy  over  his  books  he 
would,  if  it  was  summer,  put  mosquitoes  up  his  sleeve; 
iind,  if  it  was  winter,  take  off  his  shoes  and  run  barefoot 

159 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

on  the  snow.  His  handwriting  was  exceptionally  vil- 
lainous ;  poet  though  he  was,  he  had  no  taste  for  what 
was  elegant ;  and  in  a  country  where  to  write  beauti- 
fully was  not  the  mark  of  a  scrivener  but  an  admired 
accomplishment  for  gentlemen,  he  suffered  his  letters  to 
be  jolted  out  of  him  by  the  press  of  matter  and  the  heat 
of  his  convictions.  He  would  not  tolerate  even  the  ap- 
pearance of  a  bribe ;  for  bribery  lay  at  the  root  of  much 
that  was  evil  in  Japan,  as  well  as  in  countries  nearer 
home ;  and  once  when  a  merchant  brought  him  his  son 
to  educate,  and  added,  as  was  customary, ^  a  little  pri- 
vate sweetener,  Yoshida  dashed  the  money  in  the  giver's 
face,  and  launched  into  such  an  outbreak  of  indignation 
as  made  the  matter  public  in  the  school.  He  was  still, 
when  Masaki  knew  him,  much  weakened  by  his  hard- 
ships in  prison ;  and  the  presentation  sword,  three  feet 
long,  was  too  heavy  for  him  to  wear  without  distress ; 
yet  he  would  always  gird  it  on  when  he  went  to  dig  in 
his  garden.  That  is  a  touch  which  qualifies  the  man. 
A  weaker  nature  would  have  shrunk  from  the  sight  of 
what  only  commemorated  a  failure.  But  he  was  of 
Thoreau's  mind,  that  if  you  can  "make  your  failure 
tragical  by  courage,  it  will  not  differ  from  success."  He 
could  look  back  without  confusion  to  his  enthusiastic 
promise.  If  events  had  been  contrary,  and  he  found 
himself  unable  to  carry  out  that  purpose  —  well,  there 
was  but  the  more  reason  to  be  brave  and  constant  in 
another;  if  he  could  not  carry  the  sword  into  barbarian 
lands,  it  should  at  least  be  witness  to  a  life  spent  en- 
tirely for  Japan. 

1 1  understood  that  the  merchant  was  endeavouring  surreptitiously  to 
obtain  for  his  son  instruction  to  which  he  was  not  entitled.  —  F.  J. 

160 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

This  is  the  sight  we  have  of  him  as  he  appeared  to 
schoolboys,  but  not  related  in  the  schoolboy  spirit.  A 
man  so  careless  of  the  graces  must  be  out  of  court  with 
boys  and  women.  And,  indeed,  as  we  have  all  been 
more  or  less  to  school,  it  will  astonish  no  one  that  Yo- 
shida  was  regarded  by  his  scholars  as  a  laughing-stock. 
The  schoolboy  has  a  keen  sense  of  humour.  Heroes  he 
learns  to  understand  and  to  admire  in  books;  but  he  is 
not  forward  to  recognise  the  heroic  under  the  traits  of 
any  contemporary  man,  and  least  of  all  in  a  brawling, 
dirty,  and  eccentric  teacher.  But  as  the  years  went  by, 
and  the  scholars  of  Yoshida  continued  in  vain  to  look 
around  them  for  the  abstractly  perfect,  and  began  more 
and  more  to  understand  the  drift  of  his  instructions, 
they  learned  to  look  back  upon  their  comic  schoolmaster 
as  upon  the  noblest  of  mankind. 

The  last  act  of  this  brief  and  full  existence  was  already 
near  at  hand.  Some  of  his  work  was  done;  for  already 
there  had  been  Dutch  teachers  admitted  into  Nangasaki, 
and  the  country  at  large  was  keen  for  the  new  learning. 
But  though  the  renaissance  had  begun,  it  was  impeded 
and  dangerously  threatened  by  the  power  of  the  Shogun. 
His  minister  —  the  same  who  was  afterward  assassi- 
nated in  the  snow  in  the  very  midst  of  his  bodyguard — 
not  only  held  back  pupils  from  going  to  the  Dutchmen, 
but  by  spies  and  detectives,  by  imprisonment  and  death, 
kept  thinning  out  of  Japan  the  most  intelligent  and 
active  spirits.  It  is  the  old  story  of  a  power  upon  its 
last  legs  —  learning  to  the  Bastille,  and  courage  to  the 
block;  when  there  are  none  left  but  sheep  and  donkeys, 
the  State  will  have  been  saved.  But  a  man  must  not 
think  to  cope  with  a  Revolution ;  nor  a  minister,  how- 

i6i 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ever  fortified  with  guards,  to  hold  in  check  a  country 
that  had  given  birth  to  such  men  as  Yoshida  and  his 
soldier  follower.  The  violence  of  the  ministerial  Tar- 
quin  only  served  to  direct  attention  to  the  illegality  of 
his  master's  rule ;  and  people  began  to  turn  their  allegi- 
ance from  Yeddo  and  the  Shogun  to  the  long-forgotten 
Mikado  in  his  seclusion  at  Kioto.  At  this  juncture, 
whether  in  consequence  or  not,  the  relations  between 
these  two  rulers  became  strained;  and  the  Shogun's 
minister  set  forth  for  Kioto  to  put  another  affront  upon 
the  rightful  sovereign.  The  circumstance  was  well 
fitted  to  precipitate  events.  It  was  a  piece  of  religion 
to  defend  the  Mikado ;  it  was  a  plain  piece  of  political 
righteousness  to  oppose  a  tyrannical  and  bloody  usurpa- 
tion. To  Yoshida  the  moment  for  action  seemed  to 
have  arrived.  He  was  himself  still  confined  in  Choshu. 
Nothing  was  free  but  his  intelligence ;  but  with  that  he 
sharpened  a  sword  for  the  Shogun's  minister.  A  party 
of  his  followers  were  to  waylay  the  tyrant  at  a  village 
on  the  Yeddo  and  Kioto  road,  present  him  with  a  peti- 
tion, and  put  him  to  the  sword.  But  Yoshida  and  his 
friends  were  closely  observed ;  and  the  too  great  expe- 
dition of  two  of  the  conspirators,  a  boy  of  eighteen  and 
his  brother,  wakened  the  suspicion  of  the  authorities, 
and  led  to  a  full  discovery  of  the  plot  and  the  arrest  of 
all  who  were  concerned. 

In  Yeddo,  to  which  he  was  taken,  Yoshida  was 
thrown  again  into  a  strict  confinement.  But  he  was 
not  left  destitute  of  sympathy  in  this  last  hour  of  trial. 
In  the  next  cell  lay  one  Kus^kabe,  a  reformer  from  the 
southern  highlands  of  Satzuma.  They  were  in  prison 
for  different  plots  indeed,  but  for  the  same  intention; 

163 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

they  shared  the  same  beliefs  and  the  same  aspirations 
for  Japan ;  many  and  lojig  were  the  conversations  they 
held  through  the  prison  wall,  and  dear  was  the  sympa- 
thy that  soon  united  them.  It  fell  first  to  the  lot  of 
Kusakabe  to  pass  before  the  judges ;  and  when  sentence 
had  been  pronounced  he  was  led  toward  the  place  of 
death  below  Yoshida's  window.  To  turn  the  head 
would  have  been  to  implicate  his  fellow-prisoner;  but 
he  threw  him  a  look  from  his  eye,  and  bade  him  fare- 
well in  a  loud  voice,  with  these  two  Chinese  verses : — 

^"^  It  is  better  to  be  a  crystal  and  be  broken,  ^f/S'i  {I 

Than  to  remain  perfect  lii<e  a  tile  upon  the  housetop. "y^ 

So  Kusakabe,  from  the  highlands  of  Satzuma,  passed 
out  of  the  theatre  of  this  world.  His  death  was  like  an 
antique  worthy's. 

A  little  after,  and  Yoshida  too  must  appear  before  the 
Court.  His  last  scene  was  of  a  piece  with  his  career, 
and  fitly  crowned  it.  He  seized  on  the  opportunity  of 
a  public  audience,  confessed  and  gloried  in  his  design, 
and,  reading  his  auditors  a  lesson  in  the  history  of  their 
country,  told  at  length  the  illegality  of  the  Shogun's 
power  and  the  crimes  by  which  its  exercise  was  sullied. 
So,  having  said  his  say  for  once,  he  was  led  forth  and 
executed,  thirty-one  years  old. 

A  military  engineer,  a  bold  traveller  (at  least  in  wish), 
a  poet,  a  patriot,  a  schoolmaster,  a  friend  to  learning,  a 
martyr  to  reform, — there  are  not  many  men,  dying  at 
seventy,  who  have  served  their  country  in  such  various 
characters.  He  was  not  only  wise  and  provident  in 
thought,  but  surely  one  of  the  fieriest  of  heroes  in  exe- 

163 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND    BOOKS 

cution.  It  is  hard  to  say  which  is  most  remarkable  — 
his  capacity  for  command,  which  subdued  his  very  jail- 
ers; his  hot,  unflagging  zeal;  or  his  stubborn  superior- 
ity to  defeat.  He  failed  in  each  particular  enterprise 
that  he  attempted ;  and  yet  we  have  only  to  look  at  his 
country  to  see  how  complete  has  been  his  general  suc- 
cess. His  friends  and  pupils  made  the  majority  of 
leaders  in  that  final  Revolution,  now  some  twelve  years 
old ;  and  many  of  them  are,  or  were  until  the  other  day, 
high  placed  among  the  rulers  of  Japan.  And  when  we 
see  all  round  us  these  brisk  intelligent  students,  with 
their  strange  foreign  air,  we  should  never  forget  how 
Yoshida  marched  afoot  from  Choshu  to  Yeddo,  and 
from  Yeddo  to  Nangasaki,  and  from  Nangasaki  back 
again  to  Yeddo;  how  he  boarded  the  American  ship, 
his  dress  stuffed  with  writing  material;  nor  how  he 
languished  in  prison,  and  finally  gave  his  death,  as  he 
had  formerly  given  all  his  life  and  strength  and  leisure, 
to  gain  for  his  native  land  that  very  benefit  which  she 
now  enjoys  so  largely.  It  is  better  to  be  Yoshida  and 
perish,  than  to  be  only  Sakuma  and  yet  save  the  hide. 
Kusakabe,  of  Satzuma,  has  said  the  word :  it  is  better  to 
be  a  crystal  and  be  broken. 

I  must  add  a  word ;  for  I  hope  the  reader  will  not  fail 
to  perceive  that  this  is  as  much  the  story  of  a  heroic 
people  as  that  of  a  heroic  man.  It  is  not  enough  to  re- 
member Yoshida;  we  must  not  forget  the  common 
soldier,  nor  Kusakabe,  nor  the  boy  of  eighteen,  Nomu- 
ra, of  Choshu,  whose  eagerness  betrayed  the  plot.  It 
is  exhilarating  to  have  lived  in  the  same  days  with  these 
great-hearted  gentlemen.  Only  a  few  miles  from  us, 
to  speak  by  the  proportion  of  the  universe,  while  I  was 

164 


YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 

droning  over  my  lessons,  Yoshida  was  goading  himself 
to  be  wakeful  with  the  stings  of  the  mosquito;  and 
while  you  were  grudging  a  penny  income  tax,  Kusa- 
kabe  was  stepping  to  death  with  a  noble  sentence  on 
his  lips. 


1^ 


FRANgOIS    VILLON,   STUDENT,    POET,   AND 
HOUSEBREAKER 

PERHAPS  one  of  the  most  curious  revolutions  in  lit- 
erary history  is  the  sudden  bull's-eye  light  cast  by 
M.  Longnon  on  the  obscure  existence  of  Francois  Vil- 
lon.i  His  book  is  not  remarkable  merely  as  a  chapter 
of  biography  exhumed  after  four  centuries.  To  readers 
of  the  poet  it  will  recall,  with  a  flavour  of  satire,  that 
characteristic  passage  in  which  he  bequeaths  his  spec- 
tacles— with  a  humorous  reservation  of  the  case — to  the 
hospital  for  blind  paupers  known  as  the  Fifteen-Score. 
Thus  equipped,  let  the  blind  paupers  go  and  separate 
the  good  from  the  bad  in  the  cemetery  of  the  Innocents! 
For  his  own  part  the  poet  can  see  no  distinction.  Much 
have  the  dead  people  made  of  their  advantages.  What 
does  it  matter  now  that  they  have  lain  in  state  beds  and 
nourished  portly  bodies  upon  cakes  and  cream !  Here 
they  all  lie,  to  be  trodden  in  the  mud;  the  large  estate 
and  the  small,  sounding  virtue  and  adroit  or  powerful 
vice,  in  very  much  the  same  condition;  and  a  bishop 
not  to  be  distinguished  from  a  lamplighter  with  even 
the  strongest  spectacles. 

Such  was  Villon's  cynical  philosophy.     Four  hun- 
dred years  after  his  death,  when  surely  all  danger  might 

^  Etude  Biographique  sur  Frattfois  Villon.    Paris:  vH.  Menu. 
1 66 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

be  considered  at  an  end,  a  pair  of  critical  spectacles  have 
been  applied  to  his  own  remains;  and  though  he  left 
behind  him  a  sufficiently  ragged  reputation  from  the 
first,  it  is  only  after  these  four  hundred  years  that  his 
delinquencies  have  been  finally  tracked  home,  and  we 
can  assign  him  to  his  proper  place  among  the  good  or 
wicked.  It  is  a  staggering  thought,  and  one  that  af- 
fords a  fine  figure  of  the  imperishability  of  men's  acts, 
that  the  stealth  of  the  private  inquiry  office  can  be  car- 
ried so  far  back  into  the  dead  and  dusty  past.  We  are 
not  so  soon  quit  of  our  concerns  as  Villon  fancied.  In 
the  extreme  of  dissolution,  when  not  so  much  as  a  man's 
name  is  remembered,  when  his  dust  is  scattered  to  the 
four  winds,  and  perhaps  the  very  grave  and  the  very 
graveyard  where  he  was  laid  to  rest  have  been  forgot- 
ten, desecrated,  and  buried  under  populous  towns, — 
even  in  this  extreme  let  an  antiquary  fall  across  a  sheet 
of  manuscript,  and  the  name  will  be  recalled,  the  old  in- 
famy will  pop  out  into  daylight  like  a  toad  out  of  a  fis- 
sure in  the  rock,  and  the  shadow  of  the  shade  of  what 
was  once  a  man  will  be  heartily  pilloried  by  his  descend- 
ants. A  little  while  ago  and  Villon  was  almost  totally 
forgotten ;  then  he  was  revived  for  the  sake  of  his  verses ; 
and  now  he  is  being  revived  with  a  vengeance  in  the 
detection  of  his  misdemeanours.  How  unsubstantial  is 
this  projection  of  a  man's  existence,  which  can  lie  in 
abeyance  for  centuries  and  then  be  brushed  up  again 
and  set  forth  for  the  consideration  of  posterity  by  a  few 
dips  in  an  antiquary's  inkpot!  This  precarious  tenure 
of  fame  goes  a  long  way  to  justify  those  (and  they  are 
not  few)  who  prefer  cakes  and  cream  in  the  immediate 
present. 

167 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 
A   WILD   YOUTH 

Francois  de  Montcorbier,  alias  Francois  des  Loges, 
alias  Francois  Villon,  alias  Michel  Mouton,  Master  of 
Arts  in  the  University  of  Paris,  was  born  in  that  city  in 
the  summer  of  143 1.  It  was  a  memorable  year  for 
France  on  other  and  higher  considerations.  A  great- 
hearted girl  and  a  poor-hearted  boy  made,  the  one  her 
last,  the  other  his  first  appearance  on  the  public  stage 
of  that  unhappy  country.  On  the  ^oth  of  May  the  ashes 
of  Joan  of  Arc  were  thrown  into  the  Seine,  and  on  the 
2d  of  December  our  Henry  Sixth  made  his  Joyous  Entry 
dismally  enough  into  disaffected  and  depopulating  Paris. 
Sword  and  fire  still  ravaged  the  open  country.  On  a 
single  April  Saturday  twelve  hundred  persons,  besides 
children,  made  their  escape  out  of  the  starving  capital. 
The  hangman,  as  is  not  uninteresting  to  note  in  con- 
nection with  Master  Francis,  was  kept  hard  at  work  in 
1431 ;  on  the  last  of  April  and  on  the  4th  of  May  alone, 
sixty-two  bandits  swung  from  Paris  gibbets.^  A  more 
confused  or  troublous  time  it  would  have  been  difficult 
to  select  for  a  start  in  life.  Not  even  a  man's  nationality 
was  certain ;  for  the  people  of  Paris  there  was  no  such 
thing  as  a  Frenchman.  The  English  were  the  English 
indeed,  but  the  French  were  only  the  Armagnacs,  whom, 
with  Joan  of  Arc  at  their  head,  they  had  beaten  back 
from  under  their  ramparts  not  two  years  before.  Such 
public  sentiment  as  they  had  centred  about  their  dear 
Duke  of  Burgundy,  and  the  dear  Duke  had  no  more 
urgent  business  than  to  keep  out  of  their  neighbour- 
hood.    ...     At  least,  and  whether  he  liked  it  or 

1  Bourgeois  de  Paris,  ed.  Pantheon,  pp.  688,  689. 
168 


FRANCOIS  VILLON 

not,  our  disreputable  troubadour  was  tubbed  and  swad- 
dled as  a  subject  of  the  English  crown. 

We  hear  nothing  of  Villon's  father  except  that  he  was 
poor  and  of  mean  extraction.  His  mother  was  given 
piously,  which  does  not  imply  very  much  in  an  old 
Frenchwoman,  and  quite  uneducated.  He  had  an  un- 
cle, a  monk  in  an  abbey  at  Angers,  who  must  have 
prospered  beyond  the  family  average,  and  was  reported 
to  be  worth  five  or  six  hundred  crowns.  Of  this  uncle 
and  his  money-box  the  reader  will  hear  once  more. 
In  1448  Francis  became  a  student  of  the  University  of 
Paris;  in  1450  he  took  the  degree  of  Bachelor,  and  in 
1452  that  of  Master  of  Arts.  His  bourse,  or  the  sum 
paid  weekly  for  his  board,  was  of  the  amount  of  two 
sous.  Now  two  sous  was  about  the  price  of  a  pound 
of  salt  butter  in  the  bad  times  of  1417;  it  was  the  price 
of  half-a-pound  in  the  worse  times  of  14 19;  and  in 
1444,  just  four  years  before  Villon  joined  the  University, 
it  seems  to  have  been  taken  as  the  average  wage  for  a 
day's  manual  labour.^  In  short,  it  cannot  have  been  a 
very  profuse  allowance  to  keep  a  sharp-set  lad  in  break- 
fast and  supper  for  seven  mortal  days ;  and  Villon's  share 
of  the  cakes  and  pastry  and  general  good  cheer,  to 
which  he  is  never  weary  of  referring,  must  have  been 
slender  from  the  first. 

The  educational  arrangements  of  the  University  of 
Paris  were,  to  our  way  of  thinking,  somewhat  incom- 
plete. Worldly  and  monkish  elements  were  presented 
in  a  curious  confusion,  which  the  youth  might  disen- 
tangle for  himself  If  he  had  an  opportunity,  on  the  one 
hand,  of  acquiring  much  hair-drawn  divinity  and  a  taste 

"^Bourgeois,  pp.  627,  6^6,  and  725. 
\6q 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

for  formal  disputation,  he  was  put  in  the  way  of  much 
gross  and  flaunting  vice  upon  the  other.  The  lecture 
room  of  a  scholastic  doctor  was  sometimes  under  the 
same  roof  with  establishments  of  a  very  different  and 
peculiarly  unedifying  order.  The  students  had  extraor- 
dinary privileges,  which  by  all  accounts  they  abused  ex- 
traordinarily. And  while  some  condemned  themselves 
to  an  almost  sepulchral  regularity  and  seclusion,  others 
fled  the  schools,  swaggered  in  the  street  "with  their 
thumbs  in  their  girdle,"  passed  the  night  in  riot,  and  be- 
haved themselves  as  the  worthy  forerunners  of  Jehan 
Frollo  in  the  romance  of  Notre  Dame  de  Paris.  Villon 
tells  us  himself  that  he  was  among  the  truants,  but  we 
hardly  needed  his  avowal.  The  burlesque  erudition  in 
which  he  sometimes  indulged  implies  no  more  than  the 
merest  smattering  of  knowledge;  whereas  his  acquain- 
tance with  blackguard  haunts  and  industries  could  only 
have  been  acquired  by  early  and  consistent  impiety  and 
idleness.  He  passed  his  degrees,  it  is  true;  but  some 
of  us  who  have  been  to  modern  universities  will  make 
their  own  reflections  on  the  value  of  the  test.  As  for 
his  three  pupils,  Colin  Laurent,  Girard  Gossouyn,  and 
Jehan  Marceau  —  if  they  were  really  his  pupils  in  any 
serious  sense —  what  can  we  say  but  God  help  them! 
And  sure  enough,  by  his  own  description,  they  turned 
out  as  ragged,  rowdy,  and  ignorant  as  was  to  be 
looked  for  from  the  views  and  manners  of  their  rare  pre- 
ceptor. 

At  some  time  or  other,  before  or  during  his  univer- 
sity career,  the  poet  was  adopted  by  Master  Guillaume 
de  Villon,  chaplain  of  Saint  Benoit-le-Betourne  near 
the  Sorbonne.     From  him  he  borrowed  the  surname  by 

170 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

which  he  is  known  to  posterity.  It  was  most  likely 
from  his  house,  called  the  Porte  Rouge,  and  situated  in 
a  garden  in  the  cloister  of  Saint  Benoit,  that  Master 
Francis  heard  the  bell  of  the  Sorbonne  ring  out  the  An- 
gelus  while  he  was  finishing  his  Small  Testament  at 
Christmastide  in  1456.  Toward  this  benefactor  he 
usually  gets  credit  for  a  respectable  display  of  gratitude. 
But  with  his  trap  and  pitfall  style  of  writing,  it  is  easy  to 
make  too  sure.  His  sentiments  are  about  as  much  to  be 
relied  on  as  those  of  a  professional  beggar;  and  in  this,  as 
in  so  many  other  matters,  he  comes  toward  us  whining 
and  piping  the  eye,  and  goes  off  again  with  a  whoop  and 
his  finger  to  his  nose.  Thus,  he  calls  Guillaume  de  Villon 
his  **  more  than  father,"  thanks  him  with  a  great  show 
of  sincerity  for  having  helped  him  out  of  many  scrapes, 
and  bequeaths  him  his  portion  of  renown.  But  the 
portion  of  renown  which  belonged  to  a  young  thief, 
distinguished  (if,  at  the  period  when  he  wrote  this 
legacy,  he  was  distinguished  at  all )  for  having  written 
some  more  or  less  obscene  and  scurrilous  ballads,  must 
have  been  little  fitted  to  gratify  the  self-respect  or  in- 
crease the  reputation  of  a  benevolent  ecclesiastic.  The 
same  remark  applies  to  a  subsequent  legacy  of  the  po- 
et's library,  with  specification  of  one  work  which  was 
plainly  neither  decent  nor  devout.  We  are  thus  left  on 
the  horns  of  a  dilemma.  If  the  chaplain  was  a  godly, 
philanthropic  personage,  who  had  tried  to  graft  good 
principles  and  good  behaviour  on  this  wild  slip  of  an 
adopted  son,  these  jesting  legacies  would  obviously  cut 
him  to  the  heart.  The  position  of  an  adopted  son  to- 
ward his  adopted  father  is  one  full  of  delicacy;  where  a 
man  lends  his  name  he  looks  for  great  consideration. 

171 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

And  this  legacy  of  Villon's  portion  of  renown  may  be 
taken  as  the  mere  fling  of  an  unregenerate  scapegrace 
who  has  wit  enough  to  recognise  in  his  own  shame  the 
readiest  weapon  of  offence  against  a  prosy  benefactor's 
feelings.  The  gratitude  of  Master  Francis  figures,  on 
this  reading,  as  a  frightful  mtmis  quantity.  If,  on  the 
other  hand,  those  jests  were  given  and  taken  in  good 
humour,  the  whole  relation  between  the  pair  degener- 
ates into  the  unedifying  complicity  of  a  debauched  old 
chaplain  and  a  witty  and  dissolute  young  scholar.  At 
this  rate  the  house  with  the  red  door  may  have  rung 
with  the  most  mundane  minstrelsy;  and  it  may  have 
been  below  its  roof  that  Villon,  through  a  hole  in  the 
plaster,  studied,  as  he  tells  us,  the  leisures  of  a  rich 
ecclesiastic. 

It  was,  perhaps,  of  some  moment  in  the  poet's  life 
that  he  should  have  inhabited  the  cloister  of  Saint  Be- 
noit.  Three  of  the  most  remarkable  among  his  early 
acquaintances  are  Catherine  de  Vausselles,  for  whom  he 
entertained  a  short-lived  affection  and  an  enduring  and 
most  unmanly  resentment;  Regnier  de  Montigny,  a 
young  blackguard  of  good  birth ;  and  Colin  de  Cayeux, 
a  fellow  with  a  marked  aptitude  for  picking  locks.  Now 
we  are  on  a  foundation  of  mere  conjecture,  but  it  is  at 
least  curious  to  find  that  two  of  the  canons  of  Saint 
Benott  answered  respectively  to  the  names  of  Pierre  de 
Vaucei  and  Etienne  de  Montigny,  and  that  there  was  a 
householder  called  Nicolas  de  Cayeux  in  a  street  —  the 
Rue  des  Poirees  —  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of 
the  cloister.  M.  Longnon  is  almost  ready  to  identify 
Catherine  as  the  niece  of  Pierre;  Regnier  as  the  nephew 
of  Etienne,  and  Colin  as  the  son  of  Nicolas.     Without 

172 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

going  so  far,  it  must  be  owned  that  tlie  approximation 
of  names  is  significant.  As  we  go  on  to  see  the  part 
played  by  each  of  these  persons  in  the  sordid  melodrama 
of  the  poet's  life,  we  shall  come  to  regard  it  as  even 
more  notable.  Is  it  not  Clough  who  has  remarked  that, 
after  all,  everything  lies  in  juxtaposition  ?  Many  a  man's 
destiny  has  been  settled  by  nothing  apparently  more 
grave  than  a  pretty  face  on  the  opposite  side  of  the 
street  and  a  couple  of  bad  companions  round  the  corner. 
Catherine  de  Vausselles  (or  de  Vaucel  —  the  change 
is  within  the  limits  of  Villon's  license)  had  plainly  de- 
lighted in  the  poet's  conversation;  near  neighbours  or 
not,  they  were  much  together;  and  Villon  made  no  se- 
cret of  his  court,  and  suffered  himself  to  believe  that  his 
feeling  was  repaid  in  kind.  This  may  have  been  an 
error  from  the  first,  or  he  may  have  estranged  her  by 
subsequent  misconduct  or  temerity.  One  can  easily 
imagine  Villon  an  impatient  wooer.  One  thing,  at 
least,  is  sure:  that  the  affair  terminated  in  a  manner 
bitterly  humiliating  to  Master  Francis.  In  presence  of 
his  lady-love,  perhaps  under  her  window  and  certainly 
with  her  connivance,  he  was  unmercifully  thrashed  by 
one  Noe  le  Joly  —  beaten,  as  he  says  himself,  like  dirty 
linen  on  the  washing-board.  It  is  characteristic  that  his 
malice  had  notably  increased  between  the  time  when  he 
wrote  the  Small  Testament  immediately  on  the  back  of 
the  occurrence,  and  the  time  when  he  wrote  the  Large 
Testament  five  years  after.  On  the  latter  occasion 
nothing  is  too  bad  for  his  "damsel  with  the  twisted 
nose,"  as  he  calls  her.  She  is  spared  neither  hint  nor 
accusation,  and  he  tells  his  messenger  to  accost  h^r  with 
the  vilest  insults.     Villon,  it  is  thought,  was  out  of  Paris 

>73 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

when  these  amenities  escaped  his  pen;  or  perhaps  the 
strong  arm  of  Noe  le  Joly  would  have  been  again  in 
requisition.  So  ends  the  love  story,  if  love  story  it  may 
properly  be  called.  Poets  are  not  necessarily  fortunate 
in  love;  but  they  usually  fall  among  more  romantic  cir- 
cumstances and  bear  their  disappointment  with  a  better 
grace. 

The  neighbourhood  of  Regnier  de  Montigny  and 
Colin  de  Cayeux  was  probably  more  influential  on  his 
after  life  than  the  contempt  of  Catherine.  For  a  man 
who  is  greedy  of  all  pleasures,  and  provided  with  little 
money  and  less  dignity  of  character,  we  may  prophesy 
a  safe  and  speedy  voyage  downward.  Humble  or  even 
truckling  virtue  may  walk  unspotted  in  this  life.  But 
only  those  who  despise  the  pleasures  can  afford  to  de- 
spise the  opinion  of  the  world.  A  man  of  a  strong, 
heady  temperament,  like  Villon,  is  very  differently 
tempted.  His  eyes  lay  hold  on  all  provocations  greed- 
ily, and  his  heart  flames  up  at  a  look  into  imperious 
desire;  he  is  snared  and  broached  to  by  anything  and 
everything,  from  a  pretty  face  to  a  piece  of  pastry  in  a 
cookshop  window;  he  will  drink  the  rinsing  of  the 
wine  cup,  stay  the  latest  at  the  tavern  party;  tap  at  the 
lit  windows,  follow  the  sound  of  singing,  and  beat  the 
whole  neighbourhood  for  another  reveller,  as  he  goes 
reluctantly  homeward;  and  grudge  himself  every  hour 
of  sleep  as  a  black  empty  period  in  which  he  cannot 
follow  after  pleasure.  Such  a  person  is  lost  if  he  have 
not  dignity,  or,  failing  that,  at  least  pride,  which  is  its 
shadow  and  in  many  ways  its  substitute.  Master 
Francis,  I  fancy,  would  follow  his  own  eager  instincts 
without  much  spiritual  struggle.     And  we  soon  find 

>74 


FRANCOIS  VILLON 

him  fallen  among  thieves  in  sober,  literal  earnest,  and 
counting  as  acquaintances  the  most  disreputable  people 
he  could  lay  his  hands  on :  fellows  who  stole  ducks  in 
Paris  Moat;  sergeants  of  the  criminal  court,  and  archers 
of  the  watch ;  blackguards  who  slept  at  night  under  the 
butchers'  stalls,  and  for  whom  the  aforesaid  archers 
peered  about  carefully  with  lanterns ;  Regnier  de  Mon- 
tigny,  Colin  de  Cayeux,  and  their  crew,  all  bound  on  a 
favouring  breeze  toward  the  gallows;  the  disorderly 
abbess  of  Port  Royal,  who  went  about  at  fair  time  with 
soldiers  and  thieves,  and  conducted  her  abbey  on  the 
queerest  principles ;  and  most  likely  Perette  Mauger,  the 
great  Paris  receiver  of  stolen  goods,  not  yet  dreaming, 
poor  woman!  of  the  last  scene  of  her  career  when 
Henry  Cousin,  executor  of  the  high  justice,  shall  bury 
her,  alive  and  most  reluctant,  in  front  of  the  new  Mon- 
tigny  gibbet.i  Nay,  our  friend  soon  began  to  take  a 
foremost  rank  in  this  society.  He  could  string  off 
verses,  which  is  always  an  agreeable  talent;  and  he 
could  make  himself  useful  in  many  other  ways.  The 
whole  ragged  army  of  Bohemia,  and  whosoever  loved 
good  cheer  without  at  all  loving  to  work  and  pay  for 
it,  are  addressed  in  contemporary  verses  as  the  "Sub- 
jects of  Francois  Villon."  He  was  a  good  genius  to  all 
hungry  and  unscrupulous  persons ;  and  became  the  hero 
of  a  whole  legendary  cycle  of  tavern  tricks  and  cheat- 
eries.  At  best,  these  were  doubtful  levities,  rather  too 
thievish  for  a  schoolboy,  rather  too  gamesome  for  a 
thief.  But  he  would  not  linger  long  in  this  equivocal 
border  land.  He  must  soon  have  complied  with  his 
surroundings.     He  was  one  who  would  go  where  the 

1  Chronique  Scandaleuse,  ed.  Pantheon,  p.  237. 
»75 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

cannikin  clinked,  not  caring  who  should  pay;  and  from 
supping  in  the  wolves'  den,  there  is  but  a  step  to  hunt- 
ing with  the  pack.  And  here,  as  I  am  on  the  chapter 
of  his  degradation,  I  shall  say  all  I  mean  to  say  about 
its  darkest  expression,  and  be  done  with  it  for  good. 
Some  charitable  critics  see  no  more  than  2ijeu  d' esprit, 
a  graceful  and  trifling  exercise  of  the  imagination,  in  the 
grimy  ballad  of  Fat  Peg  (Grosse  Margot).  I  am  not 
able  to  follow  these  gentlemen  to  this  polite  extreme. 
Out  of  all  Villon's  works  that  ballad  stands  forth  in  flar- 
ing reality,  gross  and  ghastly,  as  a  thing  written  in  a 
contraction  of  disgust.  M.  Longnon  shows  us  more 
and  more  clearly  at  every  page  that  we  are  to  read  our 
poet  literally,  that  his  names  are  the  names  of  real  per- 
sons, and  the  events  he  chronicles  were  actual  events. 
But  even  if  the  tendency  of  criticism  had  run  the  other 
way,  this  ballad  would  have  gone  far  to  prove  itself  I 
can  well  understand  the  reluctance  of  worthy  persons 
in  this  matter;  for  of  course  it  is  unpleasant  to  think  of 
a  man  of  genius  as  one  who  held,  in  the  words  of  Ma- 
rina to  Boult  — 

"  A  place,  for  which  the  pained'st  fiend 

Of  hell  would  not  in  reputation  change." 

But  beyond  this  natural  unwillingness,  the  whole  diffi- 
culty of  the  case  springs  from  a  highly  virtuous  igno- 
rance of  life.  Paris  now  is  not  so  different  from  the  Paris 
of  then;  and  the  whole  of  the  doings  of  Bohemia  are 
not  written  in  the  sugar-candy  pastorals  of  Murger.  It 
is  really  not  at  all  surprising  that  a  young  man  of  the 
fifteenth  century,  with  a  knack  of  making  verses,  should 

176 


FRANgOlS  VILLON 

accept  his  bread  upon  disgraceful  terms.  The  race  of 
those  who  do  is  not  extinct;  and  some  of  them  to  this 
day  write  the  prettiest  verses  imaginable.  .  .  .  After 
this,  it  were  impossible  for  Master  Francis  to  fall  lower: 
to  go  and  steal  for  himself  would  be  an  admirable  ad- 
vance from  every  point  of  view,  divine  or  human. 

And  yet  it  is  not  as  a  thief,  but  as  a  homicide,  that  he 
makes  his  first  appearance  before  angry  justice.  On 
June  5,  1455,  when  he  was  about  twenty-four,  and  had 
been  Master  of  Arts  for  a  matter  of  three  years,  we  be- 
hold him  for  the  first  time  quite  definitely.  Angry  jus- 
tice had,  as  it  were,  photographed  him  in  the  act  of  his 
homicide  ;  and  M.  Longnon,  rummaging  among  old 
deeds,  has  turned  up  the  negative  and  printed  it  off 
for  our  instruction.  Villon  had  been  supping — copious- 
ly we  may  believe  —  and  sat  on  a  stone  bench  in  front 
of  the  Church  of  St.  Benoit,  in  company  with  a  priest 
called  Gilles  and  a  woman  of  the  name  of  Isabeau.  It 
wrs  nine  o'clock,  a  mighty  late  hour  for  the  period,  and 
evidently  a  fine  summer's  night.  Master  Francis  carried 
a  mantle,  like  a  prudent  man,  to  keep  him  from  the 
dews  (serain),  and  had  a  sword  below  it  dangling  from 
his  girdle.  So  these  three  dallied  in  front  of  St.  Benoit, 
taking  their  pleasure  (pour  soy  esbatre).  Suddenly 
there  arrived  upon  the  scene  a  priest,  Philippe  Chermoye 
or  Sermaise,  also  with  sword  and  cloak,  and  accompa- 
nied by  one  Master  Jehan  le  Mardi.  Sermaise,  accord- 
ing to  Villon's  account,  which  is  all  we  have  to  go  upon, 
came  up  blustering  and  denying  God;  as  Villon  rose  to 
make  room  for  him  upon  the  bench,  thrust  him  rudely 
back  into  his  place;  and  finally  drew  his  sword  and  cut 
open  his  lower  lip,  by  what  1  should  imagine  was  a 

177 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

very  clumsy  stroke.  Up  to  this  point,  Villon  professes 
to  have  been  a  model  of  courtesy,  even  of  feebleness : 
and  the  brawl,  in  his  version,  reads  like  the  fable  of  the 
wolf  and  the  lamb.  But  now  the  lamb  was  roused;  he 
drew  his  sword,  stabbed  Sermaise  in  the  groin,  knocked 
him  on  the  head  with  a  big  stone,  and  then,  leaving 
him  to  his  fate,  went  away  to  have  his  own  lip  doc- 
tored by  a  barber  of  the  name  of  Fouquet.  In  one  ver- 
sion, he  says  that  Gilles,  Isabeau,  and  Le  Mardi  ran 
away  at  the  first  high  words,  and  that  he  and  Sermaise 
had  it  out  alone;  in  another,  Le  Mardi  is  represented  as 
returning  and  wresting  Villon's  sword  from  him :  the 
reader  may  please  himself.  Sermaise  was  picked  up, 
lay  all  that  night  in  the  prison  of  Saint  Benoit,  where  he 
was  examined  by  an  official  of  the  Chatelet  and  ex- 
pressly pardoned  Villon,  and  died  on  the  following  Sat- 
urday in  the  Hotel  Dieu. 

This,  as  I  have  said,  was  in  June.  Not  before  Janu- 
ary of  the  next  year  could  Villon  extract  a  pardon  from 
the  king;  but  while  his  hand  was  in,  he  got  two.  One 
is  for  "Francois  des  Loges,  alias  {autrement  dit)  de 
Villon;"  and  the  other  runs  in  the  name  of  Francois  de 
Montcorbier.  Nay,  it  appears  there  was  a  further  com- 
plication ;  for  in  the  narrative  of  the  first  of  these  docu- 
ments, it  is  mentioned  that  he  passed  himself  off  upon 
Fouquet,  the  barber-surgeon,  as  one  Michel  Mouton. 
M.  Longnon  has  a  theory  that  this  unhappy  accident 
with  Sermaise  was  the  cause  of  Villon's  subsequent  ir- 
regularities;  and  that  up  to  that  moment  he  had  been 
the  pink  of  good  behaviour.  But  the  matter  has  to  my 
eyes  a  more  dubious  air.  A  pardon  necessary  for  Des 
Loges  and  another  for  Montcorbier  ?  and  these  two  the 

178 


FRANCOIS  VILLON 

same  person  ?  and  one  or  both  of  them  known  by  the 
alias  of  Villon,  however  honestly  come  by  ?  and  lastly, 
in  the  heat  of  the  moment,  a  fourth  name  thrown  out 
with  an  assured  countenance?  A  ship  is  not  to  be 
trusted  that  sails  under  so  many  colours.  This  is  not 
the  simple  bearing  of  innocence.  No  —  the  young  mas- 
ter was  already  treading  crooked  paths  ;  already,  he 
would  start  and  blench  at  a  hand  upon  his  shoulder, 
with  the  look  we  know  so  well  in  the  face  of  Hogarth's 
Idle  Apprentice;  already,  in  the  blue  devils,  he  would 
see  Henry  Cousin,  the  executor  of  high  justice,  going  in 
dolorous  procession  toward  Montfaucon,  and  hear  the 
wind  and  the  birds  crying  around  Paris  gibbet. 

A  GANG   OF   THIEVES 

In  spite  of  the  prodigious  number  of  people  who 
managed  to  get  hanged,  the  fifteenth  century  was  by  no 
means  a  bad  time  for  criminals.  A  great  confusion  of 
parties  and  great  dust  of  fighting  favoured  the  escape 
of  private  housebreakers  and  quiet  fellows  who  stole 
ducks  in  Paris  Moat.  Prisons  were  leaky;  and  as  we 
shall  see,  a  man  with  a  few  crowns  in  his  pocket  and 
perhaps  some  acquaintance  among  the  officials,  could 
easily  slip  out  and  become  once  more  a  free  marauder. 
There  was  no  want  of  a  sanctuary  where  he  might  har- 
bour until  troubles  blew  by;  and  accomplices  helped 
each  other  with  more  or  less  good  faith.  Clerks,  above 
all,  had  remarkable  facilities  for  a  criminal  way  of  life ; 
for  they  were  privileged,  except  in  cases  of  notorious 
incorrigibility,  to  be  plucked  from  the  hands  of  rude 
secular  justice  and  tried  by  a  tribunal  of  their  own.     In 

179 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

1402,  a  couple  of  thieves,  both  clerks  of  the  University, 
were  condemned  to  death  by  the  Provost  of  Paris.  As 
they  were  taken  to  Montfaucon,  they  kept  crying  "  high 
and  clearly  "  for  their  benefit  of  clergy,  but  were  none 
the  less  pitilessly  hanged  and  gibbeted.  Indignant  Alma 
Mater  interfered  before  the  king;  and  the  Provost  was 
deprived  of  all  royal  offices,  and  condemned  to  return 
the  bodies  and  erect  a  great  stone  cross,  on  the  road 
from  Paris  to  the  gibbet,  graven  with  the  effigies  of  these 
two  holy  martyrs.i  We  shall  hear  more  of  the  benefit 
of  clergy ;  for  after  this  the  reader  will  not  be  surprised 
to  meet  with  thieves  in  the  shape  of  tonsured  clerks,  or 
even  priests  and  monks. 

To  a  knot  of  such  learned  pilferers  our  poet  certainly 
belonged ;  and  by  turning  over  a  few  more  of  M.  Long- 
non's  negatives,  we  shall  get  a  clear  idea  of  their  char- 
acter and  doings.  Montigny  and  De  Cayeux  are  names 
already  known;  Guy  Tabary,  Petit-Jehan,  Dom  Nicolas, 
little  Thibault,  who  was  both  clerk  and  goldsmith,  and 
who  made  picklocks  and  melted  plate  for  himself  and 
his  companions  —  with  these  the  reader  has  still  to  be- 
come acquainted.  Petit-Jehan  and  De  Cayeux  were 
handy  fellows  and  enjoyed  a  useful  pre-eminence  in 
honour  of  their  doings  with  the  picklock.  "  Dictm  des 
Cahyem  est  fort  is  operator  crochetorum, ' '  says  Tabary 's 
interrogation,  ''  sed  dictm  Petit-Jehan,  ejus  socius,  est 
forcim  Operator."  But  the  flower  of  the  flock  was 
little  Thibault;  it  was  reported  that  no  lock  could  stand 
before  him ;  he  had  a  persuasive  hand ;  let  us  salute  ca- 
pacity wherever  we  may  find  it.  Perhaps  the  term  gang 
is  not  quite  properly  applied  to  the  persons  whose  for^ 

iMonstrelet:   Pantheon  LitUraire,  p.  26. 
180 


FRANCOIS  VILLON 

tunes  we  are  now  about  to  follow;  rather  they  were 
independent  malefactors,  socially  intimate,  and  occa- 
sionally joining  together  for  some  serious  operation,  just 
as  modern  stockjobbers  form  a  syndicate  for  an  impor- 
tant loan.  Nor  were  they  at  all  particular  to  any  branch 
of  misdoing.  They  did  not  scrupulously  confine  them- 
selves to  a  single  sort  of  theft,  as  I  hear  is  common 
among  modern  thieves.  They  were  ready  for  anything, 
from  pitch-and-toss  to  manslaughter.  Montigny,  for 
instance,  had  neglected  neither  of  these  extremes,  and 
we  find  him  accused  of  cheating  at  games  of  hazard  on 
the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other  with  the  murder  of  one 
Thevenin  Pensete  in  a  house  by  the  Cemetery  of  St.  John. 
If  time  had  only  spared  us  some  particulars,  might  not 
this  last  have  furnished  us  with  the  matter  of  a  grisly 
winter's  tale  ? 

At  Christmas-time  in  1456,  readers  of  Villon  will  re- 
member that  he  was  engaged  on  the  Small  Testament. 
About  the  same  period,  circa  festum  nativitatis  Domini, 
he  took  part  in  a  memorable  supper  at  the  Mule  Tavern, 
in  front  of  the  Church  of  St.  Mathurin.  Tabary,  who 
seems  to  have  been  very  much  Villon's  creature,  had 
ordered  the  supper  in  the  course  of  the  afternoon.  He 
was  a  man  who  had  had  troubles  in  his  time  and  lan- 
guished in  the  Bishop  of  Paris's  prisons  on  a  suspicion 
of  picking  locks;  confiding,  convivial,  not  very  astute  — 
who  had  copied  out  a  whole  improper  romance  with  his 
own  right  hand.  This  supper-party  was  to  be  his  first 
introduction  to  De  Cayeux  and  Petit-Jehan,  which  was 
probably  a  matter  of  some  concern  to  the  poor  man's 
muddy  wits;  in  the  sequel,  at  least,  he  speaks  of  both 
^with  an  undisguised  respect,  based  on  professional  in- 

181 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

feriority  in  the  matter  of  picklocks.  Dom  Nicolas,  a  Pi- 
cardy  monk,  was  the  fifth  and  last  at  table.  When  sup- 
per had  been  despatched  and  fairly  washed  down,  we 
may  suppose,  with  white  Baigneux  or  red  Beaune, 
which  were  favourite  wines  among  the  fellowship,  Ta- 
bary  was  solemnly  sworn  over  to  secrecy  on  the  night's 
performances ;  and  the  party  left  the  Mule  and  proceeded 
to  an  unoccupied  house  belonging  to  Robert  de  Saint- 
Simon.  This,  over  a  low  wall,  they  entered  without 
difficulty.  All  but  Tabary  took  off  their  upper  gar- 
ments ;  a  ladder  was  found  and  applied  to  the  high  wall 
which  separated  Saint-Simon's  house  from  the  court  of 
the  College  of  Navarre;  the  four  fellows  in  their  shirt- 
sleeves (as  we  might  say)  clambered  over  in  a  twink- 
ling: and  Master  Guy  Tabary  remained  alone  beside  the 
overcoats.  From  the  court  the  burglars  made  their  way 
into  the  vestry  of  the  chapel,  where  they  found  a  large 
chest,  strengthened  with  iron  bands  and  closed  with 
four  locks.  One  of  these  locks  they  picked,  and  then, 
by  levering  up  the  corner,  forced  the  other  three.  In- 
side was  a  small  coffer,  of  walnut  wood,  also  barred 
with  iron,  but  fastened  with  only  three  locks,  which 
were  all  comfortably  picked  by  way  of  the  keyhole.  In 
the  walnut  coffer  —  a  joyous  sight  by  our  thieves'  lantern 
—  were  five  hundred  crowns  of  gold.  There  was  some 
talk  of  opening  the  aumries,  where,  if  they  had  only 
known,  a  booty  eight  or  nine  times  greater  lay  ready 
to  their  hand;  but  one  of  the  party  (I  have  a  humorous 
suspicion  it  was  Dom  Nicolas,  the  Picardy  monk)  hur- 
ried them  away.  It  was  ten  o'clock  when  they  mounted 
the  ladder;  it  was  about  midnight  before  Tabary  beheld 
them  coming  back.     To  him  they  gave  ten  crowns,  and 

182 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

promised  a  share  of  a  two-crown  dinner  on  the  mor- 
row; whereat  we  may  suppose  his  mouth  watered.  In 
course  of  time,  he  got  wind  of  the  real  amount  of  their 
booty  and  understood  how  scurvily  he  had  been  used; 
but  he  seems  to  have  borne  no  malice.  How  could  he,, 
against  such  superb  operators  as  Petit-Jehan  and  De 
Cayeux;  or  a  person  like  Villon,  who  could  have  made 
a  new  improper  romance  out  of  his  own  head,  instead 
of  merely  copying  an  old  one  with  mechanical  right 
hand  ? 

The  rest  of  the  winter  was  not  uneventful  for  the 
gang.  First  they  made  a  demonstration  against  the 
Church  of  St.  Mathurin  after  chalices,  and  were  igno- 
miniously  chased  away  by  barking  dogs.  Then  Tabary 
fell  out  with  Casin  Chollet,  one  of  the  fellows  who  stole 
ducks  in  Paris  Moat,  who  subsequently  became  a  ser- 
geant of  the  Chatelet  and  distinguished  himself  by  mis- 
conduct, followed  by  imprisonment  and  public  castiga- 
tion,  during  the  wars  of  Louis  Eleventh.  The  quarrel 
was  not  conducted  with  a  proper  regard  to  the  king's 
peace,  and  the  pair  publicly  belaboured  each  other  until 
the  police  stepped  in,  and  Master  Tabary  was  cast  once 
more  into  the  prisons  of  the  Bishop.  While  he  still  lay 
in  durance,  another  job  was  cleverly  executed  by  the 
band  in  broad  daylight,  at  the  Augustine  Monastery. 
Brother  Guillaume  CoiflTier  was  beguiled  by  an  accom- 
plice to  St.  Mathurin  to  say  mass;  and  during  his  ab- 
sence, his  chamber  was  entered  and  five  or  six  hundred 
crowns  in  money  and  some  silver  plate  successfully  ab- 
stracted. A  melancholy  man  was  Coiffier  on  his  re- 
turn! Eight  crowns  from  this  adventure  were  for- 
warded by  little  Thibault  to  the  incarcerated  Tabary; 

183 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

and  with  these  he  bribed  the  jailer  and  reappeared  in 
Paris  taverns.  Some  time  before  or  shortly  after  this, 
Villon  set  out  for  Angers,  as  he  had  promised  in  the 
Small  Testament.  The  object  of  this  excursion  was  not 
merely  to  avoid  the  presence  of  his  cruel  mistress  or  the 
strong  arm  of  Noe  le  Joly,  but  to  plan  a  deliberate  rob- 
bery on  his  uncle  the  monk.  As  soon  as  he  had  prop- 
erly studied  the  ground,  the  others  were  to  go  over  in 
force  from  Paris  —  picklocks  and  all  —  and  away  with 
my  uncle's  strongbox !  This  throws  a  comical  sidelight 
on  his  own  accusation  against  his  relatives,  that  they 
had  "forgotten  natural  duty"  and  disowned  him  be- 
cause he  was  poor.  A  poor  relation  is  a  distasteful  cir- 
cumstance at  the  best,  but  a  poor  relation  who  plans 
deliberate  robberies  against  those  of  his  blood,  and 
trudges  hundreds  of  weary  leagues  to  put  them  into 
execution,  is  surely  a  little  on  the  wrong  side  of  tolera- 
tion. The  uncle  at  Angers  may  have  been  monstrously 
undutiful ;  but  the  nephew  from  Paris  was  upsides  with 
him. 

On  the  23d  April,  that  venerable  and  discreet  per- 
son, Master  Pierre  Marchand,  Curate  and  Prior  of  Paray- 
le-Monial,  in  the  diocese  of  Chartres,  arrived  in  Paris 
and  put  up  at  the  sign  of  the  Three  Chandeliers,  in  the 
Rue  de  la  Huchette.  Next  day,  or  the  day  after,  as  he 
was  breakfasting  at  the  sign  of  the  Armchair,  he  fell 
into  talk  with  two  customers,  one  of  whom  was  a 
priest  and  the  other  our  friend  Tabary.  The  idiotic  Ta- 
bary  became  mighty  confidential  as  to  his  past  life. 
Pierre  Marchand,  who  was  an  acquaintance  of  Guil- 
laume  Coiffier's  and  had  sympathised  with  him  over  his 
loss,  pricked  up  his  ears  at  the  mention  of  picklocks,  and 

184 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

led  on  the  transcriber  of  improper  romances  from  one 
thing  to  another,  until  they  were  fast  friends.  For  pick- 
locks the  Prior  of  Paray  professed  a  keen  curiosity ;  but 
Tabary,  upon  some  late  alarm,  had  thrown  all  his  into 
the  Seine.  Let  that  be  no  difficulty,  however,  for  was 
there  not  little  Thibault,  who  could  make  them  of  all 
shapes  and  sizes,  and  to  whom  Tabary,  smelling  an  ac- 
complice, would  be  only  too  glad  to  introduce  his  new 
acquaintance  ?  On  the  morrow,  accordingly,  they  met; 
and  Tabary,  after  having  first  wet  his  whistle  at  the 
Prior's  expense,  led  him  to  Notre  Dame  and  presented 
him  to  four  or  five  ''young  companions,"  who  were 
keeping  sanctuary  in  the  church.  They  were  all  clerks, 
recently  escaped,  like  Tabary  himself,  from  the  episco- 
pal prisons.  Among  these  we  may  notice  Thibault, 
the  operator,  a  little  fellow  of  twenty-six,  wearing  long 
hair  behind.  The  Prior  expressed,  through  Tabary,  his 
anxiety  to  become  their  accomplice  and  altogether  such 
as  they  were  {de  leur  sorte  et  de  leurs  complices). 
Mighty  polite  they  showed  themselves,  and  made  him 
many  fine  speeches  in  return.  But  for  all  that,  perhaps 
because  they  had  longer  heads  than  Tabary,  perhaps 
because  it  is  less  easy  to  wheedle  men  in  a  body,  they 
kept  obstinately  to  generalities  and  gave  him  no  infor- 
mation as  to  their  exploits,  past,  present,  or  to  come. 
I  suppose  Tabary  groaned  under  this  reserve;  for  no 
sooner  were  he  and  the  Prior  out  of  the  church  than  he 
fairly  emptied  his  heart  to  him,  gave  him  full  details  of 
many  hanging  matters  in  the  past,  and  explained  the 
future  intentions  of  the  band.  The  scheme  of  the  hour 
was  to  rob  another  Augustine  monk,  Robert  de  la  Porte, 
and  in  this  the  Prior  agreed  to  take  a  hand  with  simu- 

185 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

lated  greed.  Thus,  in  the  course  of  two  days,  he  had 
turned  this  wineskin  of  a  Tabary  inside  out.  For  a  while 
longer  the  farce  was  carried  on ;  the  Prior  was  intro- 
duced to  Petit-Jehan,  whom  he  describes  as  a  little,  very 
smart  man  of  thirty,  with  a  black  beard  and  a  short  jack- 
et; an  appointment  was  made  and  broken  in  the  de  la 
Porte  affair;  Tabary  had  some  breakfast  at  the  Prior's 
charge  and  leaked  out  more  secrets  under  the  influence 
of  wine  and  friendship;  and  then  all  of  a  sudden,  on  the 
17th  of  May,  an  alarm  sprang  up,  the  Prior  picked  up 
his  skirts  and  walked  quietly  over  to  the  Chatelet  to 
make  a  deposition,  and  the  whole  band  took  to  their 
heels  and  vanished  out  of  Paris  and  the  sight  of  the 
police. 

Vanish  as  they  like,  they  all  go  with  a  clog  about 
their  feet.  Sooner  or  later,  here  or  there,  they  will  be 
caught  in  the  fact,  and  ignominiously  sent  home.  From 
our  vantage  of  four  centuries  afterward,  it  is  odd  and 
pitiful  to  watch  the  order  in  which  the  fugitives  are  cap- 
tured and  dragged  in. 

Montigny  was  the  first.  In  August  of  that  same  year, 
he  was  laid  by  the  heels  on  many  grievous  counts ;  sac- 
rilegious robberies,  frauds,  incorrigibility,  and  that  bad 
business  about  Thevenin  Pensete  in  the  house  by  the 
Cemetery  of  St.  John.  He  was  reclaimed  by  the  eccle- 
siastical authorities  as  a  clerk ;  but  the  claim  was  rebut- 
ted on  the  score  of  incorrigibility,  and  ultimately  fell  to 
the  ground ;  and  he  was  condemned  to  death  by  the 
Provost  of  Paris.  It  was  a  very  rude  hour  for  Montigny, 
but  hope  was  not  yet  over.  He  was  a  fellow  of  some 
birth;  his  father  had  been  king's  pantler;  his  sister, 
probably  married  to  some  one  about  the  Court,  was  in 

186 


FRANCOIS  VILLON 

the  family  way,  and  her  health  would  be  endangered  if 
the  execution  was  proceeded  with.  So  down  comes 
Charles  the  Seventh  with  letters  of  mercy,  commuting 
the  penalty  to  a  year  in  a  dungeon  on  bread  and  water, 
and  a  pilgrimage  to  the  shrine  of  St.  James  in  Galicia. 
Alas!  the  document  was  incomplete;  it  did  not  contain 
the  full  tale  of  Montigny's  enormities ;  it  did  not  recite 
that  he  had  been  denied  benefit  of  clergy,  and  it  said 
nothing  about  Thevenin  Pensete.  Montigny's  hour  was 
at  hand.  Benefit  of  clergy,  honourable  descent  from 
king's  pantler,  sister  in  the  family  way,  royal  letters  of 
commutation  —  all  were  of  no  avail.  He  had  been  in 
prison  in  Rouen,  in  Tours,  in  Bordeaux,  and  four  times 
already  in  Paris ;  and  out  of  all  these  he  had  come  scath- 
less ;  but  now  he  must  make  a  little  excursion  as  far  as 
Montfaucon  with  Henry  Cousin,  executor  of  high  jus- 
tice.    There  let  him  swing  among  the  carrion  crows. 

About  a  year  later,  in  July  1458,  the  police  laid  hands 
on  Tabary.  Before  the  ecclesiastical  commissary  he  was 
twice  examined,  and,  on  the  latter  occasion,  put  to  the 
question  ordinary  and  extraordinary.  What  a  dismal 
change  from  pleasant  suppers  at  the  Mule,  where  he  sat 
in  triumph  with  expert  operators  and  great  wits!  He 
is  at  the  lees  of  life,  poor  rogue ;  and  those  fingers  which 
once  transcribed  improper  romances  are  now  agonis- 
ingly stretched  upon  the  rack.  We  have  no  sure  know- 
ledge, but  we  may  have  a  shrewd  guess  of  the  con- 
clusion. Tabary,  the  admirer,  would  go  the  same  way 
as  those  whom  he  admired. 

The  last  we  hear  of  is  Colin  de  Cayeux.  He  was 
caught  in  autumn  1460,  in  the  great  Church  of  St.  Leu 
d'Esserens,  which  makes  so  fine  a  figure  in  the  pleasant 

187 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Oise  valley  between  Creil  and  Beaumont.  He  was  re- 
claimed by  no  less  than  two  bishops;  but  the  Procureur 
for  the  Provost  held  fast  by  incorrigible  Colin.  1460 
was  an  ill-starred  year:  for  justice  was  making  a  clean 
sweep  of  ''poor  and  indigent  persons,  thieves,  cheats, 
and  lockpickers,"  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris  ;^  and 
Colin  de  Cayeux,  with  many  others,  was  condemned  to 
death  and  hanged.  ^ 


VILLON   AND  THE  GALLOWS 

Villon  was  still  absent  on  the  Angers  expedition  when 
the  Prior  of  Paray  sent  such  a  bombshell  among  his  ac- 
complices; and  the  dates  of  his  return  and  arrest  remain 
undiscoverable.  M.  Campaux  plausibly  enough  opined 
for  the  autumn  of  1457,  which  would  make  him  closely 
follow  on  Montigny,  and  the  first  of  those  denounced 
by  the  Prior  to  fall  into  the  toils.  We  may  suppose,  at 
least,  that  it  was  not  long  thereafter;  we  may  suppose 
him  competed  for  between  lay  and  clerical  Courts;  and 
we  may  suppose  him  alternately  pert  and  impudent, 
humble  and  fawning,  in  his  defence.  But  at  the  end  of 
all  supposing,  we  come  upon  some  nuggets  of  fact. 
For  first,  he  was  put  to  the  question  by  water.  He  who 
had  tossed  off  so  many  cups  of  white  Baigneux  or  red 

1  Cbron.  Scand.,  ut  supra. 

2  Here  and  there,  principally  in  the  order  of  events,  this  article  differs 
from  M.  Longnon's  own  reading  of  his  material.  The  ground  on  which 
he  defers  the  execution  of  Montigny  and  De  Cayeux  beyond  the  date 
of  their  trials  seems  insufficient.  There  is  a  law  of  parsimony  for  the 
construction  of  historical  documents;  simplicity  is  the  first  duty  of  nar- 
ration; and  hanged  they  were. 

188 


FRANCOIS   VILLON 

Beaume,  now  drank  water  through  linen  folds,  until  his 
bowels  were  flooded  and  his  heart  stood  still.  After  so 
much  raising  of  the  elbow,  so  much  outcry  of  fictitious 
thirst,  here  at  last  was  enough  drinking  for  a  lifetime. 
Truly,  of  our  pleasant  vices,  the  gods  make  whips  to 
scourge  us.  And  secondly  he  was  condemned  to  be 
hanged.  A  man  may  have  been  expecting  a  catastrophe 
for  years,  and  yet  find  himself  unprepared  when  it  ar- 
rives. Certainly,  Villon  found,  in  this  legitimate  issue 
of  his  career,  a  very  staggering  and  grave  consideration. 
Every  beast,  as  he  says,  clings  bitterly  to  a  whole  skin. 
If  everything  is  lost,  and  even  honour,  life  still  remains ; 
nay,  and  it  becomes,  like  the  ewe  lamb  in  Nathan's 
parable,  as  dear  as  all  the  rest.  *'Do  you  fancy,"  he 
asks,  in  a  lively  ballad,  ''that  I  had  not  enough  philo- 
sophy under  my  hood  to  cry  out:  '  I  appeal ' .?  If  I  had 
made  any  bones  about  the  matter,  I  should  have  been 
planted  upright  in  the  fields,  by  the  St.  Denis  Road  " — 
Montfaucon  being  on  the  way  to  St.  Denis.  An  appeal 
to  Parliament,  as  we  saw  in  the  case  of  Colin  de  Cayeux, 
did  not  necessarily  lead  to  an  acquittal  or  a  commuta- 
tion ;  and  while  the  matter  was  pending,  our  poet  had 
ample  opportunity  to  reflect  on  his  position.  Hanging 
is  a  sharp  argument,  and  to  swing  with  many  others  on 
the  gibbet  adds  a  horrible  corollary  for  the  imagination. 
With  the  aspect  of  Montfaucon  he  was  well  acquainted ; 
indeed,  as  the  neighbourhood  appears  to  have  been  sacred 
to  junketing  and  nocturnal  picnicsofwild  young  men  and 
women,  he  had  probably  studied  it  under  all  varieties  of 
hour  and  weather.  And  now,  as  he  lay  in  prison  wait- 
ing the  mortal  push,  these  different  aspects  crowded 
back  on  his  imagination  with  a  new  and  startling  sig- 

189 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND  BOOKS 

nificance;  and  he  wrote  a  ballad,  by  way  of  epitaph  for 
himself  and  his  companions,  which  remains  unique  in 
the  annals  of  mankind.  It  is,  in  the  highest  sense,  a  piece 
of  his  biography :  — 

"  La  pluye  nous  a  debuez  et  lavez, 
Et  le  soleil  dessechez  et  noirciz; 
Pies,  corbeaulx,  nous  ont  les  yeux  cavez, 
Et  arrachez  la  barbe  et  les  sourcilz. 
Jamais,  nul  temps,  nous  ne  sommes  rassis; 
Puis  fa,  puis  la,  comme  le  vent  varie, 
A  son  plaisir  sans  cesser  nous  charie, 
Plus  becquetez  d'oiseaulx  que  dez  a  couldre. 
Ne  soyez  done  de  nostre  confrairie, 
Mais  priez  Dieu  que  tous  nous  vueille  absouldre." 

Here  is  some  genuine  thieves*  literature  after  so  much 
that  was  spurious ;  sharp  as  an  etching,  written  with  a 
shuddering  soul.  There  is  an  intensity  of  consideration 
in  the  piece  that  shows  it  to  be  the  transcript  of  familiar 
thoughts.  It  is  the  quintessence  of  many  a  doleful 
nightmare  on  the  straw,  when  he  felt  himself  swing 
helpless  in  the  wind,  and  saw  the  birds  turn  about  him, 
screaming  and  menacing  his  eyes. 

And,  after  all,  the  Parliament  changed  his  sentence 
into  one  of  banishment;  and  to  Roussillon,  in  Dauphiny, 
our  poet  must  carry  his  woes  without  delay.  Travellers 
between  Lyons  and  Marseilles  may  remember  a  station 
on  the  line,  some  way  below  Vienne,  where  the  Rhone 
fleets  seaward  between  vine-clad  hills.  This  was  Vil- 
lon's Siberia.  It  would  be  a  little  warm  in  summer 
perhaps,  and  a  little  cold  in  winter  in  that  draughty 
valley  between  two  great  mountain  fields;  but  what 

190 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

with  the  hills,  and  the  racing  river,  and  the  fiery  Rhone 
whines,  he  was  little  to  be  pitied  on  the  conditions  of  his 
exile.  Villon,  in  a  remarkably  bad  ballad,  written  in  a 
breath,  heartily  thanked  and  fulsomely  belauded  the 
Parliament;  the  envoi,  like  the  proverbial  postscript  of 
a  lady's  letter,  containing  the  pith  of  his  performance  in 
a  request  for  three  days'  delay  to  settle  his  affairs  and 
bid  his  friends  farewell.  He  was  probably  not  followed 
out  of  Paris,  like  Antoine  Fradin,  the  popular  preacher, 
another  exile  of  a  few  years  later,  by  weeping  multi- 
tudes ;  1  but  I  dare  say  one  or  two  rogues  of  his  ac- 
quaintance would  keep  him  company  for  a  mile  or  so 
on  the  south  road,  and  drink  a  bottle  with  him  before 
they  turned.  For  banished  people,  in  those  days,  seem 
to  have  set  out  on  their  own  responsibility,  in  their  own 
guard,  and  at  their  own  expense.  It  was  no  joke  to 
make  one's  way  from  Paris  to  Roussillon  alone  and  pen- 
niless in  the  fifteenth  century.  Villon  says  he  left  a  rag  of 
liis  tails  on  every  bush.  Indeed,  he  must  have  had  many 
a  weary  tramp,  many  a  slender  meal,  and  many  a  to-do 
with  blustering  captains  of  the  Ordonnance.  But  with 
one  of  his  light  fingers,  we  may  fancy  that  he  took  as 
good  as  he  gave;  for  every  rag  of  his  tail,  he  would 
manage  to  indemnify  himself  upon  the  population  in  the 
shape  of  food,  or  wine,  or  ringing  money ;  and  his  route 
would  be  traceable  across  France  and  Burgundy  by 
housewives  and  inn-keepers  lamenting  over  petty  thefts, 
like  the  track  of  a  single  human  locust.  A  strange 
figure  he  must  have  cut  in  the  eyes  of  the  good  coun- 
try people:  this  ragged,  blackguard  city  poet,  with  a 
-smack  of  the  Paris  student,  and  a  smack  of  the  Paris 

1  Chron.  Scand.,  p.  338. 
191 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Street  arab,  posting  along  the  highways,  in  rain  or  suit, 
among  the  green  fields  and  vineyards.  For  himself,  he 
had  no  taste  for  rural  loveliness;  green  fields  and  vine- 
yards would  be  mighty  indifferent  to  Master  Francis; 
but  he  would  often  have  his  tongue  in  his  cheek  at  the 
simplicity  of  rustic  dupes,  and  often,  at  city  gates,  he 
might  stop  to  contemplate  the  gibbet  with  its  swinging 
bodies,  and  hug  himself  on  his  escape. 

How  long  he  stayed  at  Roussillon,  how  far  he  became 
the  protege  of  the  Bourbons,  to  whom  that  town  be- 
longed, or  when  it  was  that  he  took  part,  under  the 
auspices  of  Charles  of  Orleans,  in  a  rhyming  tournament 
to  be  referred  to  once  again  in  the  pages  of  the  present 
volume,  are  matters  that  still  remain  in  darkness,  in 
spite  of  M.  Longnon's  diligent  rummaging  among  ar- 
chives. When  we  next  find  him,  in  summer  146 1, 
alas!  he  is  once  more  in  durance:  this  time  at  Meun- 
sur-Loire,  in  the  prisons  of  Thibault  d'Aussigny,  Bishop 
of  Orleans.  He  had  been  lowered  in  a  basket  into  a 
noisome  pit,  where  he  lay,  all  summer,  gnawing  hard 
crusts  and  railing  upon  fate.  His  teeth,  he  says,  were 
like  the  teeth  of  a  rake :  a  touch  of  haggard  portraiture 
all  the  more  real  for  being  excessive  and  burlesque,  and 
all  the  more  proper  to  the  man  for  being  a  caricature  of 
his  own  misery.  His  eyes  were  "bandaged  with  thick 
walls."  It  might  blow  hurricanes  overhead;  the  light- 
ning might  leap  in  high  heaven;  but  no  word  of  all  this 
reached  him  in  his  noisome  pit.  "11  n'entre,  ou  gist, 
n'escler  ni  tourbillon."  Above  all,  he  was  fevered  with 
envy  and  anger  at  the  freedom  of  others;  and  his  heart 
flowed  over  into  curses  as  he  thought  of  Thibault 
d'Aussigny,  walking  the  streets  in  God's  sunlight,  and 

19a 


FRANgOIS   VILLON 

blessing  people  with  extended  fingers.  So  much  we 
find  sharply  lined  in  his  own  poems.  Why  he  was  cast 
again  into  prison  —  how  he  had  again  managed  to  shave 
the  gallows  —  this  we  know  not,  nor,  from  the  destruc- 
tion of  authorities,  are  we  ever  likely  to  learn.  But  on 
October  2d,  1461,  or  some  day  immediately  preceding, 
the  new  King,  Louis  Eleventh,  made  his  joyous  entry 
into  Meun.  Now  it  was  a  part  of  the  formality  on  such 
occasions  for  the  new  King  to  liberate  certain  prisoners ; 
and  so  the  basket  was  let  down  into  Villon's  pit,  and 
hastily  did  Master  Francis  scramble  in,  and  was  most 
joyfully  hauled  up,  and  shot  out,  blinking  and  tottering, 
but  once  more  a  free  man,  into  the  blessed  sun  and  wind. 
Now  or  never  is  the  time  for  verses!  Such  a  happy 
revolution  would  turn  the  head  of  a  stocking- weaver, 
and  set  him  jingling  rhymes.  And  so  —  after  a  voyage 
to  Paris,  where  he  finds  Montigny  and  De  Cayeux  clat- 
tering their  bones  upon  the  gibbet,  and  his  three  pupils 
roystering  in  Paris  streets,  *'with  their  thumbs  under 
their  girdles,"  —  down  sits  Master  Francis  to  write  his 
Large  Testament,  and  perpetuate  his  name  in  a  sort  of 
glorious  ignominy. 

THE   LARGE  TESTAMENT 

Of  this  capital  achievement  and,  with  it,  of  Villon's 
style  in  general,  it  is  here  the  place  to  speak.  The 
Large  Testament  is  a  hurly-burly  of  cynical  and  senti- 
mental reflections  about  life,  jesting  legacies  to  friends 
and  enemies,  and,  interspersed  among  these  many  ad- 
mirable ballades,  both  serious  and  absurd.  With  so  free 
a  design,  no  thought  that  occurred  to  him  would  need 

^9^ 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

to  be  dismissed  without  expression ;  and  he  could  draw 
at  full  length  the  portrait  of  his  own  bedevilled  soul,  and 
of  the  bleak  and  blackguardly  world  which  was  the 
theatre  of  his  exploits  and  sufferings.  If  the  reader  can 
conceive  something  between  the  slap-dash  inconse- 
quence of  Byron's  Don  Juan  and  the  racy  humorous 
gravity  and  brief  noble  touches  that  distinguish  the  ver- 
nacular poems  of  Burns,  he  will  have  formed  some  idea 
of  Villon's  style.  To  the  latter  writer  —  except  in  the 
ballades,  which  are  quite  his  own,  and  can  be  paralleled 
from  no  other  language  known  to  me  —  he  bears  a  par- 
ticular resemblance.  In  common  with  Burns  he  has  a 
certain  rugged  compression,  a  brutal  vivacity  of  epithet, 
a  homely  vigour,  a  delight  in  local  personalities,  and  an 
interest  in  many  sides  of  life,  that  are  often  despised  and 
passed  over  by  more  effete  and  cultured  poets.  Both 
also,  in  their  strong,  easy  colloquial  way,  tend  to  be- 
come difficult  and  obscure ;  the  obscurity  in  the  case  of 
Villon  passing  at  times  into  the  absolute  darkness  of 
cant  language.  They  are  perhaps  the  only  two  great 
masters  of  expression  who  keep  sending  their  readers 
to  a  glossary. 

"Shall  we  not  dare  to  say  of  a  thief,"  asks  Montaigne, 
**that  he  has  a  handsome  leg?"  It  is  a  far  more  seri- 
ous claim  that  we  have  to  put  forward  in  behalf  of  Vil- 
lon. Beside  that  of  his  contemporaries,  his  writing,  so 
full  of  colour,  so  eloquent,  so  picturesque,  stands  out  in 
an  almost  miraculous  isolation.  If  only  one  or  two  of 
the  chroniclers  could  have  taken  a  leaf  out  of  his  book, 
history  would  have  been  a  pastime,  and  the  fifteenth 
century  as  present  to  our  minds  as  the  age  of  Charles 
Second.     This  gallows-bird  was  the  one  great  writer 

«94 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

of  his  age  and  country,  and  initiated  modern  literature 
for  France.  Boileau,  long  ago,  in  the  period  of  perukes 
and  snuff-boxes,  recognised  him  as  the  first  articulate 
poet  in  the  language ;  and  if  we  measure  him,  not  by 
priority  of  merit,  but  living  duration  of  influence,  not  on 
a  comparison  with  obscure  forerunners,  but  with  great 
and  famous  successors,  we  shall  install  this  ragged  and 
disreputable  figure  in  a  far  higher  niche  in  glory's  tem- 
ple than  was  ever  dreamed  of  by  the  critic.  It  is,  in  it- 
self, a  memorable  fact  that,  before  1542,  in  the  very 
dawn  of  printing,  and  while  modern  France  was  in  the 
making,  the  works  of  Villon  ran  through  seven  different 
editions.  Out  of  him  flows  much  of  Rabelais;  and 
through  Rabelais,  directly  and  indirectly,  a  deep,  per- 
manent, and  growing  inspiration.  Not  only  his  style, 
but  his  callous  pertinent  way  of  looking  upon  the  sordid 
and  ugly  sides  of  life,  becomes  every  day  a  more  spe- 
cific feature  in  the  literature  of  France.  And  only  the 
other  year,  a  work  of  some  power  appeared  in  Paris, 
and  appeared  with  infinite  scandal,  which  owed  its 
whole  inner  significance  and  much  of  its  outward  form 
to  the  study  of  our  rhyming  thief 

The  world  to  which  he  introduces  us  is,  as  before  said, 
blackguardly  and  bleak.  Paris  swarms  before  us,  full  of 
famine,  shame,  and  death;  monks  and  the  servants  of 
great  lords  hold  high  wassail  upon  cakes  and  pastry; 
the  poor  man  licks  his  lips  before  the  baker's  window; 
people  with  patched  eyes  sprawl  all  night  under  the 
stalls ;  chuckling  Tabary  transcribes  an  improper  ro- 
mance; bare-bosomed  lasses  and  ruffling  students  swag- 
ger in  the  streets ;  the  drunkard  goes  stumbling  home- 
ward ;   the  graveyard  is  full  of  bones ;   and  away  on 

>95 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Montfaucon,  Colin  de  Cayeux  and  Montigny  hang  drag- 
gled in  the  rain.  Is  there  nothing  better  to  be  seen  than 
sordid  misery  and  worthless  joys  ?  Only  where  the  poor 
old  mother  of  the  poet  kneels  in  church  below  painted 
windows,  and  makes  tremulous  supplication  to  the 
Mother  of  God. 

In  our  mixed  world,  full  of  green  fields  and  happy 
lovers,  where  not  long  before,  Joan  of  Arc  had  led  one 
of  the  highest  and  noblest  lives  in  the  whole  story  of 
mankind,  this  was  all  worth  chronicling  that  our  poet 
could  perceive.  His  eyes  were  indeed  sealed  with  his 
own  filth.  He  dwelt  all  his  life  in  a  pit  more  noisome 
than  the  dungeon  at  Meun.  In  the  moral  world,  also, 
there  are  large  phenomena  not  cognisable  out  of  holes 
and  corners.  Loud  winds  blow,  speeding  home  deep- 
laden  ships  and  sweeping  rubbish  from  the  earth ;  the 
lightning  leaps  and  cleans  the  face  of  heaven;  high 
purposes  and  brave  passions  shake  and  sublimate 
men's  spirits;  and  meanwhile,  in  the  narrow  dungeon 
of  his  soul,  Villon  is  mumbling  crusts  and  picking 
vermin. 

Along  with  this  deadly  gloom  of  outlook,  we  must 
take  another  characteristic  of  his  work :  its  unrivalled 
insincerity.  I  can  give  no  better  similitude  of  this  qual- 
ity than  I  have  given  already :  that  he  comes  up  with  a 
whine,  and  runs  away  with  a  whoop  and  his  finger  to 
his  nose.  His  pathos  is  that  of  a  professional  mendicant 
who  should  happen  to  be  a  man  of  genius;  his  levity 
that  of  a  bitter  street  arab,  full  of  bread.  On  a  first 
reading,  the  pathetic  passages  preoccupy  the  reader, 
and  he  is  cheated  out  of  an  alms  in  the  shape  of  sympa- 
thy.    But  when  the  thing  is  studied  the  illusion  fades 

196 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

away :  in  the  transitions,  above  all,  we  can  detect  the  evil, 
ironical  temper  of  the  man;  and  instead  of  a  flighty 
work,  where  many  crude  but  genuine  feelings  tumble 
together  for  the  mastery  as  in  the  lists  of  tournament, 
we  are  tempted  to  think  of  the  Large  Testament  as  of 
one  long-drawn  epical  grimace,  pulled  by  a  merry-an- 
drew,  who  has  found  a  certain  despicable  eminence  over 
human  respect  and  human  affections  by  perching  him- 
self astride  upon  the  gallows.  Between  these  two 
views,  at  best,  all  temperate  judgments  will  be  found  to 
fall;  and  rather,  as  I  imagine,  toward  the  last. 

There  were  two  things  on  which  he  felt  with  perfect 
and,  in  one  case,  even  threatening  sincerity. 

The  first  of  these  was  an  undisguised  envy  of  those 
richer  than  himself.  He  was  forever  drawing  a  parallel, 
already  exemplified  from  his  own  words,  between  the 
happy  life  of  the  well-to-do  and  the  miseries  of  the  poor. 
Burns,  too  proud  and  honest  not  to  work,  continued 
through  all  reverses  to  sing  of  poverty  with  a  light,  de- 
fiant note.  Beranger  waited  till  he  was  himself  beyond 
the  reach  of  want,  before  writing  the  Old  Vagabond  or 
Jacques.  Samuel  Johnson,  although  he  was  very  sorry 
to  be  poor,  "  was  a  great  arguer  for  the  advantages  of 
poverty  "  in  his  ill  days.  Thus  it  is  that  brave  men 
carry  their  crosses,  and  smile  with  the  fox  burrowing  in 
their  vitals.  But  Villon,  who  had  not  the  courage  to  be 
poor  with  honesty,  now  whiningly  implores  our  sym- 
pathy, now  shows  his  teeth  upon  the  dung-heap  with 
an  ugly  snarl.  He  envies  bitterly,  envies  passionately. 
Poverty,  he  protests,  drives  men  to  steal,  as  hunger 
makes  the  wolf  sally  from  the  forest.  The  poor,  he  goes 
on,  will  always  have  a  carping  word  to  say,  or,  if  that 

197 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

outlet  be  denied,  nourish  rebellious  thoughts.  It  is  a 
calumny  on  the  noble  army  of  the  poor.  Thousands  in 
a  small  way  of  life,  ay,  and  even  in  the  smallest,  go 
through  life  with  tenfold  as  much  honour  and  dignity 
and  peace  of  mind,  as  the  rich  gluttons  whose  dainties 
and  state-beds  awakened  Villon's  covetous  temper.  And 
every  morning's  sun  sees  thousands  who  pass  whistling 
to  their  toil.  But  Villon  was  the  "  mauvais  pauvre  "  de- 
fined by  Victor  Hugo,  and,  in  its  English  expression,  so 
admirably  stereotyped  by  Dickens.  He  was  the  first 
wicked  sans-culotte.  He  is  the  man  of  genius  with  the 
moleskin  cap.  He  is  mighty  pathetic  and  beseeching 
here  in  the  street,  but  I  would  not  go  down  a  dark  road 
with  him  for  a  large  consideration. 

The  second  of  the  points  on  which  he  was  genuine 
and  emphatic  was  common  to  the  middle  ages ;  a  deep 
and  somewhat  snivelling  conviction  of  the  transitory 
nature  of  this  life  and  the  pity  and  horror  of  death.  Old 
age  and  the  grave,  with  some  dark  and  yet  half-sceptical 
terror  of  an  after-world  —  these  were  ideas  that  clung 
about  his  bones  like  a  disease.  An  old  ape,  as  he  says, 
may  play  all  the  tricks  in  its  repertory,  and  none  of 
them  will  tickle  an  audience  into  good  humour.  ' '  Tous- 
jours  vieil  synge  est  desplaisant. "  It  is  not  the  old  jester 
who  receives  most  recognition  at  a  tavern  party,  but  the 
young  fellow,  fresh  and  handsome,  who  knows  the  new 
slang,  and  carries  off  his  vice  with  a  certain  air.  Of 
this,  as  a  tavern  jester  himself,  he  would  be  pointedly 
conscious.  As  for  the  women  with  whom  he  was  best 
acquainted,  his  reflections  on  their  old  age,  in  all  their 
harrowing  pathos,  shall  remain  in  the  original  for  me. 
Horace  has  disgraced  himself  to  something  the  same 

198 


FRANgOIS  VILLON 

tune ;  but  what  Horace  throws  out  with  an  ill-favoured 
laugh,  Villon  dwells  on  with  an  almost  maudlin  whimper. 
It  is  in  death  that  he  finds  his  truest  inspiration;  in 
the  swift  and  sorrowful  change  that  overtakes  beauty; 
in  the  strange  revolution  by  which  great  fortunes  and 
renowns  are  diminished  to  a  handful  of  churchyard 
dust;  and  in  the  utter  passing  away  of  what  was  once 
lovable  and  mighty.  It  is  in  this  that  the  mixed  tex- 
ture of  his  thought  enables  him  to  reach  such  poignant 
and  terrible  effects,  and  to  enhance  pity  with  ridicule, 
like  a  man  cutting  capers  to  a  funeral  march.  It  is  in 
this,  also,  that  he  rises  out  of  himself  into  the  higher 
spheres  of  art.  So,  in  the  ballade  by  which  he  is  best 
known,  he  rings  the  changes  on  names  that  once  stood 
for  beautiful  and  queenly  women,  and  are  now  no  more 
than  letters  and  a  legend.  ' '  Where  are  the  snows  of  yes- 
ter  year.?"  runs  the  burden.  And  so,  in  another  not  so 
famous,  he  passes  in  review  the  different  degrees  of  by- 
gone men,  from  the  holy  Apostles  and  the  golden  Emperor 
of  the  East,  down  to  the  heralds,  pursuivants,  and  trum- 
peters, who  also  bore  their  part  in  the  world's  pageantries 
and  ate  greedily  at  great  folks'  tables :  all  this  to  the  refrain 
of  "  So  much  carry  the  winds  away!  "  Probably,  there 
was  some  melancholy  in  his  mind  for  a  yet  lower  grade, 
and  Montigny  and  Colin  de  Cayeux  clattering  their 
bones  on  Paris  gibbet.  Alas,  and  with  so  pitiful  an  ex- 
perience of  life,  Villon  can  offer  us  nothing  but  terror 
and  lamentation  about  death!  No  one  has  ever  more 
skilfully  communicated  his  own  disenchantment;  no 
one  ever  blown  a  more  ear-piercing  note  of  sadness. 
This  unrepentant  thief  can  attain  neither  to  Christian 
confidence,  nor  to  the  spirit  of  the  bright  Greek  sayings 

199 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

that  whom  the  gods  love  die  early.  It  is  a  poor  heart, 
and  a  poorer  age,  that  cannot  accept  the  conditions  of 
life  with  some  heroic  readiness. 


The  date  of  the  Large  Testament  is  the  last  date  in 
the  poet's  biography.  After  having  achieved  that  ad- 
mirable and  despicable  performance,  he  disappears  into 
the  night  from  whence  he  came.  How  or  when  he 
died,  whether  decently  in  bed  or  trussed  up  to  a  gal- 
lows, remains  a  riddle  for  foolhardy  commentators.  It 
appears  his  health  had  suffered  in  the  pit  at  Meun ;  he 
was  thirty  years  of  age  and  quite  bald ;  with  the  notch 
in  his  under  lip  where  Sermaise  had  struck  him  with 
the  sword,  and  what  wrinkles  the  reader  may  imagine. 
In  default  of  portraits,  this  is  all  I  have  been  able  to 
piece  together,  and  perhaps  even  the  baldness  should 
be  taken  as  a  figure  of  his  destitution.  A  sinister  dog, 
in  all  likelihood,  but  with  a  look  in  his  eye,  and  the 
loose  flexible  mouth  that  goes  with  wit  and  an  over- 
weening sensual  temperament.  Certainly  the  sorriest 
figure  on  the  rolls  of  fame. 


aoo 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

FOR  one  who  was  no  great  politician,  nor  (as  men  go) 
especially  v/ise,  capable  or  virtuous,  Charles  of  Or- 
leans is  more  than  usually  enviable  to  all  who  love  that 
better  sort  of  fame  which  consists  in  being  known  not 
widely,  but  intimately.  "To  be  content  that  time  to 
come  should  know  there  was  such  a  man,  not  caring 
whether  they  knew  more  of  him,  or  to  subsist  under 
naked  denominations,  without  deserts  or  noble  acts," 
is,  says  Sir  Thomas  Browne,  a  frigid  ambition.  It  is  to 
some  more  specific  memory  that  youth  looks  forward 
in  its  vigils.  Old  kings  are  sometimes  disinterred  in  all 
the  emphasis  of  life,  the  hands  untainted  by  decay,  the 
beard  that  had  so  often  wagged  in  camp  or  senate  still 
spread  upon  the  royal  bosom ;  and  in  busts  and  pictures, 
some  similitude  of  the  great  and  beautiful  of  former  days 
is  handed  down.  In  this  way,  public  curiosity  may  be 
gratified,  but  hardly  any  private  aspiration  after  fame. 
It  is  not  likely  that  posterity  will  fall  in  love  with  us, 
but  not  impossible  that  it  may  respect  or  sympathise; 
and  so  a  man  would  rather  leave  behind  him  the  por- 
trait of  his  spirit  than  a  portrait  of  his  f2ice,Jigura  animi 
magis  quam  corporis.  Of  those  who  have  thus  sur- 
vived themselves  most  completely,  left  a  sort  of  per- 

20 1 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND    BOOKS 

sonal  seduction  behind  them  in  the  world,  and  retained, 
after  death,  the  art  of  making  friends,  Montaigne  and 
Samuel  Johnson  certainly  stand  first.  But  we  have 
portraits  of  all  sorts  of  men,  from  august  Caesar  to  the 
king's  dwarf;  and  all  sorts  of  portraits,  from  a  Titian 
treasured  in  the  Louvre  to  a  profile  over  the  grocer's 
chimney-shelf.  And  so  in  a  less  degree,  but  no  less 
truly,  than  the  spirit  of  Montaigne  lives  on  in  the  de- 
lightful Essays,  that  of  Charles  of  Orleans  survives  in  a 
few  old  songs  and  old  account-books ;  and  it  is  still  in 
the  choice  of  the  reader  to  make  this  duke's  acquaint- 
ance, and,  if  their  humours  suit,  become  his  friend. 


His  birth — if  we  are  to  argue  from  a  man's  parents — 
was  above  his  merit.  It  is  not  merely  that  he  was  the 
grandson  of  one  king,  the  father  of  another,  and  the 
uncle  of  a  third ;  but  something  more  specious  was  to 
be  looked  for  from  the  son  of  his  father,  Louis  de  Valois, 
Duke  of  Orleans,  brother  to  the  mad  king  Charles  VI., 
lover  of  Queen  Isabel,  and  the  leading  patron  of  art  and 
one  of  the  leading  politicians  in  France.  And  the  poet 
might  have  inherited  yet  higher  virtues  from  his  mother, 
Valentina  of  Milan,  a  very  pathetic  figure  of  the  age, 
the  faithful  wife  of  an  unfaithful  husband,  and  the  friend 
of  a  most  unhappy  king.  The  father,  beautiful,  elo- 
quent, and  accomplished,  exercised  a  strange  fascina- 
tion over  his  contemporaries;  and  among  those  who- 
dip  nowadays  into  the  annals  of  the  time  there  are  not 
many  —  and  these  few  are  little  to  be  envied  —  who  can 
resist  the  fascination  of  the  mother.     All  mankind  owfr 

3oa 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

her  a  debt  of  gratitude  because  she  brought  some  com- 
fort into  the  life  of  the  poor  madman  who  wore  the 
crown  of  France. 

Born  (May  1391)  of  such  a  noble  stock,  Charles  was 
to  know  from  the  first  all  favours  of  nature  and  art.  His 
father's  gardens  were  the  admiration  of  his  contempora- 
ries ;  his  castles  were  situated  in  the  most  agreeable  parts 
of  France,  and  sumptuously  adorned.  We  have  pre- 
served, in  an  inventory  of  1403,  the  description  of  tap- 
estried rooms  where  Charles  may  have  played  in  child- 
hood.i  '*  A  green  room,  with  the  ceiling  full  of  angels, 
and  the  dossier  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  seeming 
(faisant  contenance)  to  eat  nuts  and  cherries.  A  room 
of  gold,  silk  and  worsted,  with  a  device  of  little  children 
in  a  river,  and  the  sky  full  of  birds.  A  room  of  green 
tapestry,  showing  a  knight  and  lady  at  chess  in  a  pa- 
vilion. Another  green  room,  with  shepherdesses  in  a 
trellised  garden  worked  in  gold  and  silk.  A  carpet 
representing  cherry-trees,  where  there  is  a  fountain,  and 
a  lady  gathering  cherries  in  a  basin."  These  were  some 
of  the  pictures  over  which  his  fancy  might  busy  itself 
of  an  afternoon,  or  at  morning  as  he  lay  awake  in  bed. 
With  our  deeper  and  more  logical  sense  of  life,  we  can 
have  no  idea  how  large  a  space  in  the  attention  of  me- 
diaeval men  might  be  occupied  by  such  figured  hangings 
on  the  wall.  There  was  something  timid  and  purblind 
in  the  view  they  had  of  the  world.  Morally,  they  saw 
nothing  outside  of  traditional  axioms ;  and  little  of  the 
physical  aspect  of  things  entered  vividly  into  their  mind, 
beyond  what  was  to  be  seen  on  church  windows  and 
the  walls  and  floors  of  palaces.    The  reader  will  remem* 

1  Champollion-Figeac's  Louis  et  Charles  d'Orleans,  p.  348. 
203 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ber  how  Villon's  mother  conceived  of  heaven  and  hell 
and  took  all  her  scanty  stock  of  theology  from  the 
stained  glass  that  threw  its  light  upon  her  as  she  prayed. 
And  there  is  scarcely  a  detail  of  external  effect  in  the 
chronicles  and  romances  of  the  time,  but  might  have 
been  borrowed  at  second  hand  from  a  piece  of  tapestry. 
It  was  a  stage  in  the  history  of  mankind  which  we  may 
see  paralleled,  to  some  extent,  in  the  first  infant  school, 
where  the  representations  of  lions  and  elephants  alter- 
nate round  the  wall  with  moral  verses  and  trite  present- 
ments of  the  lesser  virtues.  So  that  to  live  in  a  house 
of  many  pictures  was  tantamount,  for  the  time,  to  a  lib- 
eral education  in  itself 

At  Charles's  birth  an  order  of  knighthood  was  inaugu- 
rated in  his  honour.  At  nine  years  old,  he  was  a  squire ; 
at  eleven,  he  had  the  escort  of  a  chaplain  and  a  school- 
master; at  twelve,  his  uncle  the  king  made  him  a  pen- 
sion of  twelve  thousand  livres  d'or.^  He  saw  the  most 
brilliant  and  the  most  learned  persons  of  France,  in  his 
father's  Court;  and  would  not  fail  to  notice  that  these 
brilliant  and  learned  persons  were  one  and  all  engaged 
in  rhyming.  Indeed,  if  it  is  difficult  to  realise  the  part 
played  by  pictures,  it  is  perhaps  even  more  difficult  to 
realise  that  played  by  verses  in  the  polite  and  active  his- 
tory of  the  age.  At  the  siege  of  Pontoise,  English  and 
French  exchanged  defiant  ballads  over  the  walls.^  If  a 
scandal  happened,  as  in  the  loathsome  thirty-third  story 
of  the  Cent  Nouvelles  Nouvelles,  all  the  wits  must  make 
rondels  and  chansonettes,  which  they  would  hand  from 

1  D'Hericault's  admirable  Memoir,  prefixed  to  his  edition  of  Charles's 
works,  vol.  i.  p.  xi. 

2  Vallet  de  Viriville,  Charles  VII.  et  son  Epoque,  ii.  428,  note  a. 

ao4 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

one  to  another  with  an  unmanly  sneer.  Ladies  carried 
their  favourite's  ballades  in  their  girdles. i  Margaret  of 
Scotland,  all  the  world  knows  already,  kissed  Alain 
Chartier's  lips  in  honour  of  the  many  virtuous  thoughts 
and  golden  sayings  they  had  uttered ;  but  it  is  not  so 
well  known,  that  this  princess  was  herself  the  most  in- 
dustrious of  poetasters,  that  she  is  supposed  to  have 
hastened  her  death  by  her  literary  vigils,  and  sometimes 
wrote  as  many  as  twelve  rondels  in  the  day.2  It  was 
in  rhyme,  even,  that  the  young  Charles  should  learn  his 
lessons.  He  might  get  all  manner  of  instruction  in  the 
truly  noble  art  of  the  chase,  not  without  a  smack  of  eth- 
ics by  the  way,  from  the  compendious  didactic  poem 
of  Gace  de  la  Bigne.  Nay,  and  it  was  in  rhyme  that  he 
should  learn  rhyming:  in  the  verses  of  his  father's  Mattre 
d'Hotel,  Eustache  Deschamps,  which  treated  of  **  Tart 
de  dictier  et  de  faire  chansons,  ballades,  virelais  et  ron- 
deaux,"  along  with  many  other  matters  worth  attention, 
from  the  courts  of  Heaven  to  the  migovernment  of 
France.'  At  this  rate,  all  knowledge  is  to  be  had  in  a 
goody,  and  the  end  of  it  is  an  old  song.  We  need  not 
wonder  when  we  hear  from  Monstrelet  that  Charles 
was  a  very  well-educated  person.  He  could  string  Latin 
texts  together  by  the  hour,  and  make  ballades  and  ron- 
dels better  than  Eustache  Deschamps  himself.  He  had 
seen  a  mad  king  who  would  not  change  his  clothes, 
and  a  drunken  emperor  who  could  not  keep  his  hand 
from  the  wine-cup.  He  had  spoken  a  great  deal  with 
jesters  and  fiddlers,  and  with  the  profligate  lords  who 

1  See  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Le  Roi  Rene,  i.  167. 

2  Vallet,  Charles  VII.,  ii.  85,  86,  note  2. 

3  Champollion-Figeac,  193-198. 

205 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

helped  his  father  to  waste  the  revenues  of  France.  He 
had  seen  ladies  dance  on  into  broad  daylight,  and  much 
burning  of  torches  and  waste  of  dainties  and  good 
wine.^  And  when  all  is  said,  it  was  no  very  helpful 
preparation  for  the  battle  of  life.  * '  I  believe  Louis  XI. , " 
writes  Comines,  "would  not  have  saved  himself,  if  he 
had  not  been  very  differently  brought  up  from  such 
other  lords  as  I  have  seen  educated  in  this  country ;  for 
these  were  taught  nothing  but  to  play  the  jackanapes 
with  finery  and  fine  words.  "^  I  am  afraid  Charles  took 
such  lessons  to  heart,  and  conceived  of  life  as  a  season 
principally  for  junketing  and  war.  His  view  of  the  whole 
duty  of  man,  so  empty,  vain,  and  wearisome  to  us,  was 
yet  sincerely  and  consistently  held.  When  he  came  in 
his  ripe  years  to  compare  the  glory  of  two  kingdoms, 
England  and  France,  it  was  on  three  points  only, —  plea- 
sures, valour,  and  riches, — that  he  cared  to  measure 
them ;  and  in  the  very  outset  of  that  tract  he  speaks  of 
the  life  of  the  great  as  passed,  "whether  in  arms,  as  in 
assaults,  battles,  and  sieges,  or  in  jousts  and  tournaments, 
in  high  and  stately  festivities  and  in  funeral  solemnities. "  ^ 
When  he  was  no  more  than  thirteen,  his  father  had 
him  affianced  to  Isabella,  virgin-widow  of  our  Richard 

^  Ibid.  209. 

2  The  student  will  see  that  there  are  facts  cited,  and  expressions  bor- 
rowed, in  this  paragraph,  from  a  period  extending  over  almost  the  whole 
of  Charles's  life,  instead  of  being  confined  entirely  to  his  boyhood.  As 
I  do  not  believe  there  was  any  change,  so  I  do  not  believe  there  is  any 
anachronism  involved. 

3  The  Debate  between  the  Heralds  of  France  and  England,  trans- 
lated and  admirably  edited  by  Mr.  Henry  Pyne.  For  the  attribution 
of  this  tract  to  Charles,  the  reader  is  referred  to  Mr.  Pyne's  conclusive 
argument. 

206 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

II.  and  daughter  of  his  uncle  Charles  VI. ;  and,  two 
years  after  (June  29,  1406),  the  cousins  were  married  at 
Compiegne,  he  fifteen,  she  seventeen  years  of  age.  It 
was  in  every  way  a  most  desirable  match.  The  bride 
brought  five  hundred  thousand  francs  of  dowry.  The 
ceremony  was  of  the  utmost  magnificence,  Louis  of 
Orleans  figuring  in  crimson  velvet,  adorned  with  no  less 
than  seven  hundred  and  ninety-five  pearls,  gathered  to- 
gether expressly  for  this  occasion.  And  no  doubt  it 
must  have  been  very  gratifying  for  a  young  gentleman  of 
fifteen,  to  play  the  chief  part  in  a  pageant  so  gaily  put 
upon  the  stage.  Only,  the  bridegroom  might  have  been 
a  little  older;  and,  as  ill-luck  would  have  it,  the  bride 
herself  was  of  this  way  of  thinking,  and  would  not  be 
consoled  for  the  loss  of  her  title  as  queen,  or  the  con- 
temptible age  of  her  new  husband.  Pleuroit  fort  ladite 
Isabeau;  the  said  Isabella  wept  copiously.^  It  is  fairly 
debatable  whether  Charles  was  much  to  be  pitied  when, 
three  years  later  (September  1409),  this  odd  marriage 
was  dissolved  by  death.  Short  as  it  was,  however,  this 
connection  left  a  lasting  stamp  upon  his  mind;  and  we 
find  that,  in  the  last  decade  of  his  life,  and  after  he  had 
remarried  for  perhaps  the  second  time,  he  had  not  yet 
forgotten  or  forgiven  the  violent  death  of  Richard  II. 
'*Ce  mauvais  cas"  —  that  ugly  business,  he  writes,  has 
yet  to  be  avenged. 

The  marriage  festivity  was  on  the  threshold  of  evil 
days.  The  great  rivalry  between  Louis  of  Orleans  and 
John  the  Fearless,  Duke  of  Burgundy,  had  been  for- 
sworn with  the  most  reverend  solemnities.  But  the 
feud  was  only  in  abeyance,  and  John  of  Burgundy  still 

iDes  Ursins. 
207 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

conspired  in  secret.  On  November  23,  1407  —  in  that 
black  winter  when  the  frost  lasted  six-and-sixty  days 
on  end  —  a  summons  from  the  king  reached  Louis  of 
Orleans  at  the  Hotel  Barbette,  where  he  had  been  sup- 
ping with  Queen  Isabel.  It  was  seven  or  eight  in  the 
evening,  and  the  inhabitants  of  the  quarter  were  abed. 
He  set  forth  in  haste,  accompanied  by  two  squires  rid- 
ing on  one  horse,  a  page,  and  a  few  varlets  running  with 
torches.  As  he  rode,  he  hummed  to  himself  and  trifled 
with  his  glove.  And  so  riding,  he  was  beset  by  the 
bravoes  of  his  enemy  and  slain.  My  lord  of  Burgundy 
set  an  ill  precedent  in  this  deed,  as  he  found  some  years 
after  on  the  bridge  at  Montereau ;  and  even  in  the  mean- 
time  he  did  not  profit  quietly  by  his  rival's  death.  The 
horror  of  the  other  princes  seems  to  have  perturbed  him- 
self; he  avowed  his  guilt  in  the  council,  tried  to  brazen 
it  out,  finally  lost  heart  and  fled  at  full  gallop,  cutting 
bridges  behind  him,  toward  Bapaume  and  Lille.  And 
so  there  we  have  the  head  of  one  faction,  who  had  just 
made  himself  the  most  formidable  man  in  France,  en- 
gaged in  a  remarkably  hurried  journey,  with  black  care 
on  the  pillion.  And  meantime,  on  the  other  side,  the 
widowed  duchess  came  to  Paris  in  appropriate  mourn- 
ing, to  demand  justice  for  her  husband's  death.  Charles 
VI.,  who  was  then  in  a  lucid  interval,  did  probably  all 
that  he  could,  when  he  raised  up  the  kneeling  suppliant 
with  kisses  and  smooth  words.  Things  were  at  a  dead- 
lock. The  criminal  might  be  in  the  sorriest  fright,  but 
he  was  still  the  greatest  of  vassals.  Justice  was  easy  to 
ask  and  not  difficult  to  promise;  how  it  was  to  be  exe- 
cuted was  another  question.  No  one  in  France  was 
strong  enough  to  punish  John  of  Burgundy ;  and  perhaps 

ao8 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

no  one,  except  the  widow,  very  sincere  in  wishing  to 
punish  him. 

She,  indeed,  was  eaten  up  of  zeal ;  but  the  intensity 
of  her  eagerness  wore  her  out;  and  she  died  about  a 
year  after  the  murder,  of  grief  and  indignation,  unre- 
quited love  and  unsatisfied  resentment.  It  was  during 
the  last  months  of  her  life  that  this  fiery  and  generous 
woman,  seeing  the  soft  hearts  of  her  own  children, 
looked  with  envy  on  a  certain  natural  son  of  her  hus- 
band's destined  to  become  famous  in  the  sequel  as  the 
Bastard  of  Orleans,  or  the  brave  Dunois.  "  You  were 
stolen  from  me/'  she  said;  ''it  is  you  who  are  fit  to 
avenge  your  father."  These  are  not  the  words  of  or- 
dinary mourning,  or  of  an  ordinary  woman.  It  is  a  say- 
ing, over  which  Balzac  would  have  rubbed  his  episcopal 
hands.  That  the  child  who  was  to  avenge  her  husband 
had  not  been  born  out  of  her  body,  was  a  thing  intol- 
erable to  Valentina  of  Milan ;  and  the  expression  of  this 
singular  and  tragic  jealousy  is  preserved  to  us  by  a  rare 
chance,  in  such  straightforward  and  vivid  words  as  we 
are  accustomed  to  hear  only  on  the  stress  of  actual  life,  or 
in  the  theatre.  In  history — where  we  see  things  as  in  a 
glass  darkly,  and  the  fashion  of  former  times  is  brought 
before  us,  deplorably  adulterated  and  defaced,  fitted  to 
very  vague  and  pompous  words,  and  strained  through 
many  men's  minds  of  everything  personal  or  precise  — 
this  speech  of  the  widowed  duchess  startles  a  reader, 
somewhat  as  the  footprint  startled  Robinson  Crusoe.  A 
human  voice  breaks  in  upon  the  silence  of  the  study,  and 
the  student  is  aware  of  a  fellow-creature  in  his  world  of 
documents.  With  such  a  clue  in  hand,  one  may  imagine 
how  this  wounded  lioness  would  spur  and  exasperate 

209 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

the  resentment  of  her  children,  and  what  would  be  the 
last  words  of  counsel  and  command  she  left  behind  her. 
With  these  instances  of  his  dying  mother  —  almost  a 
voice  from  the  tomb  —  still  tingling  in  his  ears,  the  posi- 
tion of  young  Charles  of  Orleans,  when  he  was  left  at 
the  head  of  that  great  house,  was  curiously  similar  to 
that  of  Shakespeare's  Hamlet.  The  times  were  out  of 
joint ;  here  was  a  murdered  father  to  avenge  on  a  pow- 
erful murderer;  and  here,  in  both  cases,  a  lad  of  inactive 
disposition  born  to  set  these  matters  right.  Valentina's 
commendation  of  Dunois  involved  a  judgment  on 
Charles,  and  that  judgment  was  exactly  correct.  Who- 
ever might  be,  Charles  was  not  the  man  to  avenge  his 
father.  Like  Hamlet,  this  son  of  a  dear  father  murdered 
was  sincerely  grieved  at  heart.  Like  Hamlet,  too,  he 
could  unpack  his  heart  with  words,  and  wrote  a  most 
eloquent  letter  to  the  king,  complaining  that  what  was 
denied  to  him  would  not  be  denied  **  to  the  lowest  born 
and  poorest  man  on  earth."  Even  in  his  private  hours 
he  strove  to  preserve  a  lively  recollection  of  his  injury, 
and  keep  up  the  native  hue  of  resolution.  He  had  gems 
engraved  with  appropriate  legends,  hortatory  or  threat- 
ening: " Dieu  le  scet,"  God  knows  it;  or  "' Souvenei- 
vous  de — "  Remember!^  It  is  only  toward  the  end 
that  the  two  stories  begin  to  differ;  and  in  some  points 
the  historical  version  is  the  more  tragic.  Hamlet  only 
stabbed  a  silly  old  councillor  behind  the  arras ;  Charles 
of  Orleans  trampled  France  for  five  years  under  the 
hoofs  of  his  banditti.  The  miscarriage  of  Hamlet's  ven- 
geance was  confined,  at  widest,  to  the  palace;  the  ruin 
wrought  by  Charles  of  Orleans  was  as  broad  as  France. 

iMichelet,  iv.  App.  179,  p.  337. 
310 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

Yet  the  first  act  of  the  young  duke  is  worthy  of  hon- 
ourable mention.  Prodigal  Louis  had  made  enormous 
debts;  and  there  is  a  story  extant,  to  illustrate  how- 
lightly  he  himself  regarded  these  commercial  obligations. 
It  appears  that  Louis,  after  a  narrow  escape  he  made  in 
a  thunder-storm,  had  a  smart  access  of  penitence,  and 
announced  he  would  pay  his  debts  on  the  following 
Sunday.  More  than  eight  hundred  creditors  presented 
themselves,  but  by  that  time  the  devil  was  well  again, 
and  they  were  shown  the  door  with  more  gaiety  than 
politeness.  A  time  when  such  cynical  dishonesty  was 
possible  for  a  man  of  culture  is  not,  it  will  be  granted,  a 
fortunate  epoch  for  creditors.  When  the  original  debtor 
was  so  lax,  we  may  imagine  how  an  heir  would  deal 
with  the  incumbrances  of  his  inheritance.  On  the  death 
of  Philip  the  Forward,  father  of  that  John  the  Fearless 
whom  we  have  seen  at  work,  the  widow  went  through 
the  ceremony  of  a  public  renunciation  of  goods ;  taking 
off  her  purse  and  girdle,  she  left  them  on  the  grave,  and 
thus,  by  one  notable  act,  cancelled  her  husband's  debts 
and  defamed  his  honour.  The  conduct  of  young  Charles 
of  Orleans  was  very  different.  To  meet  the  joint  liabil- 
ities of  his  father  and  mother  (for  Valentina  also  was 
lavish),  he  had  to  sell  or  pledge  a  quantity  of  jewels ; 
and  yet  he  would  not  take  advantage  of  a  pretext,  even 
legally  valid,  to  diminish  the  amount.  Thus,  one  Gode- 
froi  Lefevre,  having  disbursed  many  odd  sums  for  the 
late  duke,  and  received  or  kept  no  vouchers,  Charles 
ordered  that  he  should  be  believed  upon  his  oath.^  To 
a  modern  mind  this  seems  as  honourable  to  his  father's 
memory  as  if  John  the  Fearless  had  been  hanged  as  high 

1  Champollion-Figeac,  pp.  279-82. 
211 


FAMILIAR.  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

as  Haman.  And  as  things  fell  out,  except  a  recantation 
from  the  University  of  Paris,  which  had  justified  the 
murder  out  of  party  feeling,  and  various  other  purely 
paper  reparations,  this  was  about  the  outside  of  what 
Charles  was  to  effect  in  that  direction.  He  lived  five 
years,  and  grew  up  from  sixteen  to  twenty-one,  in  the 
midst  of  the  most  horrible  civil  war,  or  series  of  civil 
wars,  that  ever  devastated  France;  and  from  first  to  last 
his  wars  were  ill-starred,  or  else  his  victories  useless. 
Two  years  after  the  murder  (March  1409),  John  the 
Fearless  having  the  upper  hand  for  the  moment,  a 
shameful  and  useless  reconciliation  took  place,  by  the 
king's  command,  in  the  church  of  Our  Lady  at  Chartres. 
The  advocate  of  the  Duke  of  Burgundy  stated  that  Louis 
of  Orleans  had  been  killed  **for  the  good  of  the  king's 
person  and  realm. "  Charles  and  his  brothers,  with  tears 
of  shame,  under  protest,  pour  ne  pas  desobeir  au  roi, 
forgave  their  father's  murderer  and  swore  peace  upon 
the  missal.  It  was,  as  I  say,  a  shameful  and  useless 
ceremony;  the  very  greffier,  entering  it  in  his  register, 
wrote  in  the  margin,  ''  Pax,  pax,  inquit  Propheta,  et 
non  est  pax."  ^  Charles  was  soon  after  allied  with  the 
abominable  Bernard  d'Armagnac,  even  betrothed  or 
married  to  a  daughter  of  his,  called  by  a  name  that 
sounds  like  a  contradiction  in  terms.  Bonne  d'Armagnac. 
From  that  time  forth,  throughout  all  this  monstrous 
period  —  a  very  nightmare  in  the  history  of  France  — 
he  is  no  more  than  a  stalking-horse  for  the  ambitious 
Gascon.  Sometimes  the  smoke  lifts,  and  you  can  see 
him  for  the  twinkling  of  an  eye,  a  very  pale  figure;  at 
one  moment  there  is  a  rumour  he  will  be  crowned 

IMichelet,  iv.  pp.  123-4. 

213 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

king;  at  another,  when  the  uproar  has  subsided,  he  will 
be  heard  still  crying  out  for  justice;  and  the  next  (14 12), 
he  is  showing  himself  to  the  applauding  populace  on 
the  same  horse  with  John  of  Burgundy.  But  these  are 
exceptional  seasons,  and,  for  the  most  part,  he  merely 
rides  at  the  Gascon's  bridle  over  devastated  France. 
His  very  party  go,  not  by  the  name  of  Orleans,  but  by 
the  name  of  Armagnac.  Paris  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
butchers:  the  peasants  have  taken  to  the  woods.  Al- 
liances are  made  and  broken  as  if  in  a  country  dance; 
the  English  called  in,  now  by  this  one,  now  by  the 
other.  Poor  people  sing  in  church,  with  white  faces 
and  lamentable  music :  '"  Dominejesu,  parcepopulo  tuo, 
dirige  in  viam  pacts  principes/'  And  the  end  and  up- 
shot of  the  whole  affair  for  Charles  of  Orleans  is  another 
peace  with  John  the  Fearless.  France  is  once  more 
tranquil,  with  the  tranquillity  of  ruin ;  he  may  ride  home 
again  to  Blois,  and  look,  with  what  countenance  he 
may,  on  those  gems  he  had  got  engraved  in  the  early 
days  of  his  resentment,  '"  Souvenei-vous  de — "  Re- 
member! He  has  killed  Polonius,  to  be  sure;  but  the 
king  is  never  a  penny  the  worse. 


From  the  battle  of  Agincourt  (Oct.  141 5)  dates  the 
second  period  of  Charles's  life.  The  English  reader  will 
remember  the  name  of  Orleans  in  the  play  of//^«rr  K./ 
and  it  is  at  least  odd  that  we  can  trace  a  resemblance  be- 
tween the  puppet  and  the  original.  The  interjection, 
**  I  have  heard  a  sonnet  begin  so  to  one's  mistress  " 
{Act  iii.  scene  7),  may  very  well  indicate  one  who  was 

ai3 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

already  an  expert  in  that  sort  of  trifle ;  and  the  game  of 
proverbs  he  plays  with  the  Constable  in  the  same  scene, 
would  be  quite  in  character  for  a  man  who  spent  many 
years  of  his  life  capping  verses  with  his  courtiers.  Cer- 
tainly, Charles  was  in  the  great  battle  with  five  hundred 
lances  (say,  three  thousand  men),  and  there  he  was 
made  prisoner  as  he  led  the  van.  According  to  one 
story,  some  ragged  English  archer  shot  him  down;  and 
some  diligent  English  Pistol,  hunting  ransoms  on  the 
field  of  battle,  extracted  him  from  under  a  heap  of  bodies 
and  retailed  him  to  our  King  Henry.  He  was  the  most 
important  capture  of  the  day,  and  used  with  all  consid- 
eration. On  the  way  to  Calais,  Henry  sent  him  a  pres- 
ent of  bread  and  wine  (and  bread,  you  will  remember, 
was  an  article  of  luxury  in  the  English  camp),  but 
Charles  would  neither  eat  nor  drink.  Thereupon,  Henry 
came  to  visit  him  in  his  quarters.  "  Noble  cousin, "  said 
he,  "  how  are  you  ?  "  Charles  replied  that  he  was  well. 
'*  Why,  then,  do  you  neither  eat  nor  drink  ?  "  And  then 
with  some  asperity,  as  I  imagine,  the  young  duke  told 
him  that  "truly  he  had  no  inclination  for  food."  And 
our  Henry  improved  the  occasion  with  something  of  a 
snuffle,  assuring  his  prisoner  that  God  had  fought 
against  the  French  on  account  of  their  manifold  sins  and 
transgressions.  Upon  this  there  supervened  the  agonies 
of  a  rough  sea  passage;  and  many  French  lords,  Charles, 
certainly,  among  the  number,  declared  they  would  rather 
endure  such  another  defeat  than  such  another  sore  trial 
on  shipboard.  Charles,  indeed,  never  forgot  his  suffer- 
ings. Long  afterward,  he  declared  his  hatred  to  a  sea- 
faring life,  and  willingly  yielded  to  England  the  empire 
of  the  seas,  **  because  there  is  danger  and  loss  of  life,  and 

214 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

God  knows  what  pity  when  it  storms ;  and  sea-sickness 
is  for  many  people  hard  to  bear;  and  the  rough  life  that 
must  be  led  is  little  suitable  for  the  nobility :  "  ^  which, 
of  all  babyish  utterances  that  ever  fell  from  any  public 
man,  may  surely  bear  the  bell.  Scarcely  disembarked, 
he  followed  his  victor,  with  such  wry  face  as  we  may 
fancy,  through  the  streets  of  holiday  London.  And  then 
the  doors  closed  upon  his  last  day  of  garish  life  for  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  century.  After  a  boyhood  passed  in 
the  dissipations  of  a  luxurious  court  or  in  the  camp  of 
war,  his  ears  still  stunned  and  his  cheeks  still  burning 
from  his  enemies'  jubilations;  out  of  all  this  ringing  of 
English  bells  and  singing  of  English  anthems,  from 
among  all  these  shouting  citizens  in  scarlet  cloaks,  and 
beautiful  virgins  attired  in  white,  he  passed  into  the  si- 
lence and  solitude  of  a  political  prison.^ 

His  captivity  was  not  without  alleviations.  He  was 
allowed  to  go  hawking,  and  he  found  England  an  ad- 
mirable country  for  the  sport;  he  was  a  favourite  with 
English  ladies,  and  admired  their  beauty ;  and  he  did  not 
lack  for  money,  wine,  or  books;  he  was  honourably 
imprisoned  in  the  strongholds  of  great  nobles,  in  Wind- 
sor Castle  and  the  Tower  of  London.  But  when  all  is 
said,  he  was  a  prisoner  for  five-and-twenty  years.  For 
five-and-twenty  years  he  could  not  go  where  he  would, 
or  do  what  he  liked,  or  speak  with  any  but  his  jailers. 
We  may  talk  very  wisely  of  alleviations ;  there  is  only 
one  alleviation  for  which  the  man  would  thank  you :  he 
would  thank  you  to  open  the  door.  With  what  regret 
Scottish  James  I.  bethought  him  (in  the  next  room  per- 
haps to  Charles)  of  the  time  when  he  rose  ''as  early  as 

1  Debate  between  the  Heralds,  2  sir  H,  Nicholas,  Agincourt, 

315 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

the  day."  What  would  he  not  have  given  to  wet  his 
boots  once  more  with  morning  dew,  and  follow  his 
vagrant  fancy  among  the  meadows  ?  The  only  allevia- 
tion to  the  misery  of  constraint  lies  in  the  disposition  of 
the  prisoner.  To  each  one  this  place  of  discipline  brings 
his  own  lesson.  It  stirs  Latude  or  Baron  Trenck  into 
heroic  action ;  it  is  a  hermitage  for  pious  and  conform- 
able spirits.  Beranger  tells  us  he  found  prison  life,  with 
its  regular  hours  and  long  evenings,  both  pleasant  and 
profitable.  The  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  Don  Quixote 
were  begun  in  prison.  It  was  after  they  were  become 
(to  use  the  words  of  one  of  them),  "Oh,  worst  im- 
prisonment —  the  dungeon  of  themselves ! "  that  Homer 
and  Milton  worked  so  hard  and  so  well  for  the  profit  of 
mankind.  In  the  year  141 5  Henry  V.  had  two  dis- 
tinguished prisoners,  French  Charles  of  Orleans  and 
Scottish  James  I.,  who  whiled  away  the  hours  of  their 
captivity  with  rhyming.  Indeed,  there  can  be  no  better 
pastime  for  a  lonely  man  than  the  mechanical  exercise 
of  verse.  Such  intricate  forms  as  Charles  had  been  used 
to  from  childhood,  the  ballade  with  its  scanty  rhymes ; 
the  rondel,  with  the  recurrence  first  of  the  whole,  then 
of  half  the  burden,  in  thirteen  verses,  seem  to  have  been 
invented  for  the  prison  and  the  sick-bed.  The  common 
Scotch  saying,  on  the  sight  of  anything  operose  and 
finical,  '*  he  must  have  had  little  to  do  that  made  that!  " 
might  be  put  as  epigraph  on  all  the  song  books  of  old 
France.  Making  such  sorts  of  verse  belongs  to  the  same 
class  of  pleasures  as  guessing  acrostics  or  **  burying 
proverbs."  It  is  almost  purely  formal,  almost  purely 
verbal.  It  must  be  done  gently  and  gingerly.  It  keeps 
the  mind  occupied  a  long  time,  and  never  so  intently  as 

216 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

to  be  distressing ;  for  anything  like  strain  is  against  the 
very  nature  of  the  craft.  Sometimes  things  go  easily, 
the  refrains  fall  into  their  place  as  if  of  their  own  accord, 
and  it  becomes  something  of  the  nature  of  an  intellectual 
tennis;  you  must  make  your  poem  as  the  rhymes  will 
go,  just  as  you  must  strike  your  ball  as  your  adversary 
played  it.  So  that  these  forms  are  suitable  rather  for 
those  who  wish  to  make  verses,  than  for  those  who 
wish  to  express  opinions.  Sometimes,  on  the  other 
hand,  difficulties  arise :  rival  verses  come  into  a  man's 
head,  and  fugitive  words  elude  his  memory.  Then  it 
is  that  he  enjoys  at  the  same  time  the  deliberate  plea- 
sures of  a  connoisseur  comparing  wines,  and  the  ardour 
of  the  chase.  He  may  have  been  sitting  all  day  long  in 
prison  with  folded  hands ;  but  when  he  goes  to  bed,  the 
retrospect  will  seem  animated  and  eventful. 

Besides  confirming  himself  as  an  habitual  maker  of 
verses,  Charles  acquired  some  new  opinions  during  his 
captivity.  He  was  perpetually  reminded  of  the  change 
that  had  befallen  him.  He  found  the  climate  of  Eng- 
land cold  and  "prejudicial  to  the  human  frame;"  he 
had  a  great  contempt  for  English  fruit  and  English  beer; 
even  the  coal  fires  were  unpleasing  in  his  eyes."^  He 
was  rooted  up  from  among  his  friends  and  customs 
and  the  places  that  had  known  him.  And  so  in  this 
strange  land  he  began  to  learn  the  love  of  his  own. 
Sad  people  all  the  world  over  are  like  to  be  moved 
when  the  wind  is  in  some  particular  quarter.  So  Burns 
preferred  when  it  was  in  the  west,  and  blew  to  him 
from  his  mistress;  so  the  girl  in  the  ballade,  looking 
south  to  Yarrow,  thought  it  might  carry  a  kiss  betwixt 

1  Debate  between  the  Heralds. 
217 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

her  and  her  gallant;  and  so  we  find  Charles  singing  of 
the  "pleasant  wind  that  comes  from  France."^  One 
day,  at  ''Dover-on-the-Sea,"  he  looked  across  the  straits, 
and  saw  the  sandhills  about  Calais.  And  it  happened 
to  him,  he  tells  us  in  a  ballade,  to  remember  his  happi- 
ness over  there  in  the  past;  and  he  was  both  sad  and 
merry  at  the  recollection,  and  could  not  have  his  fill  of 
gazing  on  the  shores  of  France. ^  Although  guilty  of 
unpatriotic  acts,  he  had  never  been  exactly  unpatriotic 
in  feeling.  But  his  sojourn  in  England  gave,  for  the 
time  at  least,  some  consistency  to  what  had  been  a  very 
weak  and  ineffectual  prejudice.  He  must  have  been 
under  the  influence  of  more  than  usually  solemn  con- 
siderations, when  he  proceeded  to  turn  Henry's  puritan- 
ical homily  after  Agincourt  into  a  ballade,  and  reproach 
France,  and  himself  by  implication,  with  pride,  gluttony, 
idleness,  unbridled  covetousness,  and  sensuality. ^  For 
the  moment,  he  must  really  have  been  thinking  more 
of  France  than  of  Charles  of  Orleans. 

And  another  lesson  he  learned.  He  who  was  only 
to  be  released  in  case  of  peace,  begins  to  think  upon 
the  disadvantages  of  war.  "Pray  for  peace,"  is  his  re- 
frain :  a  strange  enough  subject  for  the  ally  of  Bernard 
d'Armagnac*  But  this  lesson  was  plain  and  practical; 
it  had  one  side  in  particular  that  was  specially  attractive 
for  Charles;  and  he  did  not  hesitate  to  explain  it  in  so 
many  words.  "Everybody,"  he  writes — I  translate 
roughly — "everybody  should  be  much  inclined  to  peace, 
for  everybody  has  a  deal  to  gain  by  it." ^ 

Charles  made  laudable  endeavours  to  acquire  English, 

1  Works  (ed.  d'Hericault),  i.  43.        ^  Ihid.  i.  43.        ^  Ibid.  190. 

^Ibid.  144.  ^  Ibid.  158. 

ai8 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

and  even  learned  to  write  a  rondel  in  that  tongue  of 
quite  average  mediocrity. i  He  was  for  some  time  bil- 
leted on  the  unhappy  Suffolk,  who  received  fourteen 
shillings  and  fourpence  a  day  for  his  expenses;  and 
from  the  fact  that  Suffolk  afterward  visited  Charles  in 
France  while  he  was  negotiating  the  marriage  of  Henry 
VI.,  as  well  as  the  terms  of  that  nobleman's  impeach- 
ment, we  may  believe  there  was  some  not  unkindly 
intercourse  between  the  prisoner  and  his  jailer:  a  fact  of 
considerable  interest  when  we  remember  that  Suffolk's 
wife  was  the  granddaughter  of  the  poet  Geoffrey 
Chaucer. 2  Apart  from  this,  and  a  mere  catalogue  of 
dates  and  places,  only  one  thing  seems  evident  in  the 
story  of  Charles's  captivity.  It  seems  evident  that,  as 
these  five-and-twenty  years  drew  on,  he  became  less 
and  less  resigned.  Circumstances  were  against  the 
growth  of  such  a  feeling.  One  after  another  of  his  fel- 
low-prisoners was  ransomed  and  went  home.  More 
than  once  he  was  himself  permitted  to  visit  France; 
where  he  worked  on  abortive  treaties  and  showed  him- 
self more  eager  for  his  own  deliverance  than  for  the 
profit  of  his  native  land.  Resignation  may  follow  after 
a  reasonable  time  upon  despair;  but  if  a  man  is  perse- 
cuted by  a  series  of  brief  and  irritating  hopes,  his  mind 
no  more  attains  to  a  settled  frame  of  resolution,  than 
his  eye  would  grow  familiar  with  a  night  of  thunder 
and  lightning.  Years  after,  when  he  was  speaking  at 
the  trial  of  that  Duke  of  Alen9on,  who  began  life  so 

1  M.  Champollion-Figeac  gives  many   in    his  editions   of  Charles's 
works,  most  (as  I  should  think)  of  very  doubtful  authenticity,  or  worse. 

2  Rymer,  x.  564.     D'Hericault's  Memoir,  p.  xli.     Gairdner's  Paston 
Letters,  i.  27,  99. 

319 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND    BOOKS 

hopefully  as  the  boyish  favourite  of  Joan  of  Arc,  he 
sought  to  prove  that  captivity  was  a  harder  punishment 
than  death.  "For  I  have  had  experience  myself,"  he 
said;  "and  in  my  prison  of  England,  for  the  weariness, 
danger,  and  displeasure  in  which  I  then  lay,  I  have 
many  a  time  wished  I  had  been  slain  at  the  battle  where 
they  took  me."i  This  is  a  flourish,  if  you  will,  but  it 
is  something  more.  His  spirit  would  sometimes  rise 
up  in  a  fine  anger  against  the  petty  desires  and  contra- 
rieties of  life.  He  would  compare  his  own  condition 
with  the  quiet  and  dignified  estate  of  the  dead;  and 
aspire  to  lie  among  his  comrades  on  the  field  of 
Agincourt,  as  the  Psalmist  prayed  to  have  the  wings  of 
a  dove  and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  sea.  But 
such  high  thoughts  came  to  Charles  only  in  a  flash. 

John  the  Fearless  had  been  murdered  in  his  turn  on 
the  bridge  of  Montereau  so  far  back  as  14 19.  His  son, 
Philip  the  Good — partly  to  extinguish  the  feud,  partly 
that  he  might  do  a  popular  action,  and  partly,  in  view 
of  his  ambitious  schemes,  to  detach  another  great  vas- 
sal from  the  throne  of  France  —  had  taken  up  the  cause 
of  Charles  of  Orleans,  and  negotiated  diligently  for  his 
release.  In  1433  a  Burgundian  embassy  was  admitted 
to  an  interview  with  the  captive  duke,  in  the  presence 
of  Suffolk.  Charles  shook  hands  most  affectionately 
with  the  ambassadors.  They  asked  after  his  health. 
"  I  am  well  enough  in  body,"  he  replied,  "but  far  from 
well  in  mind.  I  am  dying  of  grief  at  having  to  pass  the 
best  days  of  my  life  in  prison,  with  none  to  sympathise." 
The  talk  falling  on  the  chances  of  peace,  Charles  referred 
to  Suffolk  if  he  were  not  sincere  and  constant  in  his  en- 

1  Champollion-Figeac,  377. 
220 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

deavours  to  bring  it  about.  *Mf  peace  depended  on 
me,"  he  said,  *M  should  procure  it  gladly,  were  it  to 
cost  me  my  life  seven  days  after."  We  may  take  this 
as  showing  what  a  large  price  he  set,  not  so  much  on 
peace,  as  on  seven  days  of  freedom.  Seven  days!  —  he 
would  make  them  seven  years  in  the  employment. 
Finally,  he  assured  the  ambassadors  of  his  good  will  to 
Philip  of  Burgundy ;  squeezed  one  of  them  by  the  hand 
and  nipped  him  twice  in  the  arm  to  signify  things  un- 
speakable before  Suffolk ;  and  two  days  after  sent  them 
Suffolk's  barber,  one  Jean  Garnet,  a  native  of  Lille,  to 
testify  more  freely  of  his  sentiments.  **As  I  speak 
French,"  said  this  emissary,  **the  Duke  of  Orleans  is 
more  familiar  with  me  than  with  any  other  of  the 
household;  and  I  can  bear  witness  he  never  said  any- 
thing against  Duke  Philip.  "^  It  will  be  remembered 
that  this  person,  with  whom  he  was  so  anxious  to 
stand  well,  was  no  other  than  his  hereditary  enemy, 
the  son  of  his  father's  murderer.  But  the  honest  fellow 
bore  no  malice,  indeed  not  he.  He  began  exchanging 
ballades  with  Philip,  whom  he  apostrophises  as  his 
companion,  his  cousin,  and  his  brother.  He  assures 
him  that,  soul  and  body,  he  is  altogether  Burgundian; 
and  protests  that  he  has  given  his  heart  in  pledge  to 
him.  Regarded  as  the  history  of  a  vendetta,  it  must  be 
owned  that  Charles's  life  has  points  of  some  originality. 
And  yet  there  is  an  engaging  frankness  about  these  bal- 
lades which  disarms  criticism.  ^  You  see  Charles  throw- 
ing himself  headforemost  into  the  trap ;  you  hear  Bur- 
gundy, in  his  answers,  begin  to  inspire  him  with  his 
own  prejudices,  and  draw  melancholy  pictures  of  the 
1  Dom  Plancher,  iv.  178-9.  2  Works,  i.  157-63. 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

misgovernment  of  France.  But  Charles's  own  spirits 
are  so  high  and  so  amiable,  and  he  is  so  thoroughly 
convinced  his  cousin  is  a  fine  fellow,  that  one's  scruples 
are  carried  away  in  the  torrent  of  his  happiness  and 
gratitude.  And  his  would  be  a  sordid  spirit  who 
would  not  clap  hands  at  the  consummation  (Nov.  1440) ; 
when  Charles,  after  having  sworn  on  the  Sacrament 
that  he  would  never  again  bear  arms  against  England, 
and  pledged  himself  body  and  soul  to  the  unpatriotic 
faction  in  his  own  country,  set  out  from  London  with 
a  light  heart  and  a  damaged  integrity. 

In  the  magnificent  copy  of  Charles's  poems,  given  by 
our  Henry  VII.  to  Elizabeth  of  York  on  the  occasion  of 
their  marriage,  a  large  illumination  figures  at  the  head 
of  one  of  the  pages,  which,  in  chronological  perspective, 
is  almost  a  history  of  his  imprisonment.  It  gives  a  view 
of  London  with  all  its  spires,  the  river  passing  through 
the  old  bridge  and  busy  with  boats.  One  side  of  the 
White  Tower  has  been  taken  out,  and  we  can  see,  as 
under  a  sort  of  shrine,  the  paved  room  where  the  duke 
sits  writing.  He  occupies  a  high-backed  bench  in  front 
of  a  great  chimney ;  red  and  black  ink  are  before  him ; 
and  the  upper  end  of  the  apartment  is  guarded  by  many 
halberdiers,  with  the  red  cross  of  England  on  their 
breast.  On  the  next  side  of  the  tower  he  appears  again, 
leaning  out  of  window  and  gazing  on  the  river;  doubt- 
less there  blows  just  then  "a.  pleasant  wind  from  out 
the  land  of  France,"  and  some  ship  comes  up  the  river: 
*'the  ship  of  good  news."  At  the  door  we  find  him 
yet  again;  this  time  embracing  a  messenger,  while  a 
groom  stands  by  holding  two  saddled  horses.  And  yet 
further  to  the  left,  a  cavalcade  defiles  out  of  the  tower; 

222 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

the  duke  is  on  his  way  at  last  toward  ''the  sunshine  of 
France." 

Ill 

During  the  five-and-twenty  years  of  his  captivity, 
Charles  had  not  lost  in  the  esteem  of  his  fellow-coun- 
trymen. For  so  young  a  man,  the  head  of  so  great  a 
house,  and  so  numerous  a  party,  to  be  taken  prisoner 
as  he  rode  in  the  vanguard  of  France,  and  stereotyped 
for  all  men  in  this  heroic  attitude,  was  to  taste  untime- 
ously  the  honours  of  the  grave.  Of  him,  as  of  the  dead, 
it  would  be  ungenerous  to  speak  evil ;  what  little  energy 
he  had  displayed  would  be  remembered  with  piety, 
when  all  that  he  had  done  amiss  was  courteously  for- 
gotten. As  English  folk  looked  for  Arthur;  as  Danes 
awaited  the  coming  of  Ogier;  as  Somersetshire  peasants 
or  sergeants  of  the  Old  Guard  expected  the  return  of 
Monmouth  or  Napoleon  ;  the  countrymen  of  Charles 
of  Orleans  looked  over  the  straits  toward  his  English 
prison  with  desire  and  confidence.  Events  had  so  fallen 
out  while  he  was  rhyming  ballades,  that  he  had  become 
the  type  of  all  that  was  most  truly  patriotic.  The  rem- 
nants of  his  old  party  had  been  the  chief  defenders  of 
the  unity  of  France.  His  enemies  of  Burgundy  had  been 
notoriously  favourers  and  furtherers  of  English  domina- 
tion. People  forgot  that  his  brother  still  lay  by  the  heels 
for  an  unpatriotic  treaty  with  England,  because  Charles 
himself  had  been  taken  prisoner  patriotically  fighting 
against  it.  That  Henry  V.  had  left  special  orders  against 
his  liberation,  served  to  increase  the  wistful  pity  with 
Avhich  he  was  regarded.  And  when,  in  defiance  of  all 
contemporary  virtue,  and  against  express  pledges,  the 

2^3 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

English  carried  war  into  their  prisoner's  fief,  not  only 
France,  but  all  thinking  men  in  Christendom,  were 
roused  to  indignation  against  the  oppressors,  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  victim.  It  was  little  wonder  if  he  came 
to  bulk  somewhat  largely  in  the  imagination  of  the  best 
of  those  at  home.  Charles  le  Boutteillier,  when  (as  the 
story  goes)  he  slew  Clarence  at  Beauge,  was  only  seek- 
ing an  exchange  for  Charles  of  Orleans. ^  It  was  one  of 
Joan  of  Arc's  declared  intentions  to  deliver  the  captive 
duke.  If  there  was  no  other  way,  she  meant  to  cross 
the  seas  and  bring  him  home  by  force.  And  she  pro- 
fessed before  her  judges  a  sure  knowledge  that  Charles 
of  Orleans  was  beloved  of  God.2 

Alas!  it  was  not  at  all  as  a  deliverer  that  Charles  re- 
turned to  France.  He  was  nearly  fifty  years  old.  Many 
changes  had  been  accomplished  since,  at  twenty-three, 
he  was  taken  on  the  field  of  Agincourt.  But  of  all  these 
he  was  profoundly  ignorant,  or  had  only  heard  of  them 
in  the  discoloured  reports  of  Philip  of  Burgundy.  He 
had  the  ideas  of  a  former  generation,  and  sought  to  cor- 
rect them  by  the  scandal  of  a  factious  party.  With  such 
qualifications  he  came  back  eager  for  the  domination, 
the  pleasures,  and  the  display  that  befitted  his  princely 
birth.  A  long  disuse  of  all  political  activity  combined 
with  the  flatteries  of  his  new  friends  to  fill  him  with  aa 
overweening  conceit  of  his  own  capacity  and  influence. 
If  aught  had  gone  wrong  in  his  absence,  it  seemed  quite 
natural  men  should  look  to  him  for  its  redress.  Was 
not  King  Arthur  come  again  ? 

The  Duke  of  Burgundy  received  him  with  politic 

1  Vallet's  Charles  VII,,  i.  25 1 . 

^  Proems  de  Jeanne  d'Arc,  i.  133-55. 

224 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

honours.  He  took  his  guest  by  his  foible  for  pageantry, 
all  the  easier  as  it  was  a  foible  of  his  own ;  and  Charles 
walked  right  out  of  prison  into  much  the  same  atmos- 
phere of  trumpeting  and  bell-ringing  as  he  had  left  be- 
hind when  he  went  in.  Fifteen  days  after  his  deliver- 
ance he  was  married  to  Mary  of  Cleves,  at  St.  Omer. 
The  marriage  was  celebrated  with  the  usual  pomp  of  the 
Burgundian  court;  there  were  joustings,  and  illumina- 
tions, and  animals  that  spouted  wine;  and  many  nobles 
dined  together,  comme  en  brigade,  and  were  served 
abundantly  with  many  rich  and  curious  dishes. ^  It 
must  have  reminded  Charles  not  a  little  of  his  first  mar- 
riage at  Compiegne;  only  then  he  was  two  years  the 
junior  of  his  bride,  and  this  time  he  was  five-and-thirty 
years  her  senior.  It  will  be  a  fine  question  which  mar- 
riage promises  more:  for  a  boy  of  fifteen  to  lead  off  with 
a  lass  of  seventeen,  or  a  man  of  fifty  to  make  a  match  of 
it  with  a  child  of  fifteen.  But  there  was  something 
bitter  in  both.  The  lamentations  of  Isabella  will  not 
have  been  forgotten.  As  for  Mary,  she  took  up  with 
one  Jaquet  de  la  Lain,  a  sortof  muscular  Methody  of  the 
period,  with  a  huge  appetite  for  tournaments,  and  a  habit 
of  confessing  himself  the  last  thing  before  he  went  to 
bed. 2  With  such  a  hero,  the  young  duchess's  amours 
were  most  likely  innocent;  and  in  all  other  ways  she 
was  a  suitable  partner  for  the  duke,  and  well  fitted  to  en- 
ter into  his  pleasures. 

When  the  festivities  at  St.  Omer  had  come  to  an  end, 
Charles  and  his  wife  set  forth  by  Ghent  and  Tournay. 

1  Monstrelet. 
2  Vallet's  Charles  FIL,  iii .  chap,  i.    But  see  the  chronicle  that  bears 
Jaquet's  name:  a  lean  and  dreary  book, 

225 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

The  towns  gave  him  offerings  of  money  as  he  passed 
through,  to  help  in  the  payment  of  his  ransom.  From 
all  sides,  ladies  and  gentlemen  thronged  to  offer  him 
their  services;  some  gave  him  their  sons  for  pages, 
some  archers  for  a  bodyguard;  and  by  the  time  he 
reached  Tournay,  he  had  a  following  of  300  horse.  Ev- 
erywhere he  was  received  as  though  he  had  been  the 
King  of  France.^  If  he  did  not  come  to  imagine  himself 
something  of  the  sort,  he  certainly  forgot  the  existence 
of  any  one  with  a  better  claim  to  the  title.  He  con- 
ducted himself  or^  the  hypothesis  that  Charles  VII.  was 
another  Charles  VI.  He  signed  with  enthusiasm  that 
treaty  of  Arras,  which  left  France  almost  at  the  dis- 
cretion of  Burgundy.  On  December  18  he  was  still  no 
farther  than  Bruges,  where  he  entered  into  a  private 
treaty  with  Philip;  and  it  was  not  until  January  14,  ten 
weeks  after  he  disembarked  in  France,  and  attended  by 
a  ruck  of  Burgundian  gentlemen,  that  he  arrived  in  Paris 
and  offered  to  present  himself  before  Charles  VII.  The 
king  sent  word  that  he  might  come,  if  he  would,  with 
a  small  retinue,  but  not  with  his  present  following;  and 
the  duke,  who  was  mightily  on  his  high  horse  after  all 
the  ovations  he  had  received,  took  the  king's  attitude 
amiss,  and  turned  aside  into  Touraine,  to  receive  more 
welcome  and  more  presents,  and  be  convoyed  by  torch- 
light into  faithful  cities. 

And  so  you  see,  here  was  King  Arthur  home  again, 
and  matters  nowise  mended  in  consequence.  The  best 
we  can  say  is,  that  this  last  stage  of  Charles's  public  life 
was  of  no  long  duration.  His  confidence  was  soon 
knocked  out  of  him  in  the  contact  with  others.  He  be* 
1  Monstrelet. 

326 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

gan  to  find  he  was  an  earthen  vessel  among  many  ves- 
sels of  brass ;  he  began  to  be  shrewdly  aware  that  he 
was  no  King  Arthur.  In  144^,  at  Limoges,  he  made 
himself  the  spokesman  of  the  malcontent  nobility.  The 
king  showed  himself  humiliatingly  indifferent  to  his 
counsels,  and  humiliatingly  generous  toward  his  necess- 
ities. And  there,  with  some  blushes,  he  may  be  said  to 
have  taken  farewell  of  the  political  stage.  A  feeble  at- 
tempt on  the  county  of  Asti  is  scarce  worth  the  name  of 
exception.  Thenceforward  let  Ambition  wile  whom 
she  may  into  the  turmoil  of  events,  our  duke  will  walk 
cannily  in  his  well-ordered  garden,  or  sit  by  the  fire  to 
touch  the  slender  reed.^ 

IV 

If  it  were  given  each  of  us  to  transplant  his  life  where- 
ever  he  pleased  in  time  or  space,  with  all  the  ages  and 
all  the  countries  of  the  world  to  choose  from,  there 
would  be  quite  an  instructive  diversity  of  taste.  A  cer- 
tain sedentary  majority  would  prefer  to  remain  where 
they  were.  Many  would  choose  the  Renaissance; 
many  some  stately  and  simple  period  of  Grecian  life; 
and  still  more  elect  to  pass  a  few  years  wandering 
among  the  villages  of  Palestine  with  an  inspired  con- 
ductor. For  some  of  our  quaintly  vicious  contempora- 
ries, we  have  the  decline  of  the  Roman  Empire  and  the 
reign  of  Henry  III.  of  France.  But  there  are  others  not 
quite  so  vicious,  who  yet  cannot  look  upon  the  world 
with  perfect  gravity,  who  have  never  taken  the  cate- 
gorical imperative  to  wife,  and  have  more  taste  for  what 
is  comfortable  than  for  what  is  magnanimous  and  high; 

1  D'Hericault's  Memoir,  xl.  xli.    Vallet,  Charles  l^I,,  ii.  435. 
227 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

and  I  can  imagine  some  of  these  casting  their  lot  in  the 
Court  of  Biois  during  the  last  twenty  years  of  the  life  of 
Charles  of  Orleans. 

The  duke  and  duchess,  their  staff  of  officers  and  ladies, 
and  the  high-born  and  learned  persons  who  were  at- 
tracted to  Blois  on  a  visit,  formed  a  society  for  killing 
time  and  perfecting  each  other  in  various  elegant  accom- 
plishments, such  as  we  might  imagine  for  an  ideal 
watering-place  in  the  Delectable  Mountains.  The  com- 
pany hunted  and  went  on  pleasure-parties ;  they  played 
chess,  tables,  and  many  other  games.  What  we  now 
call  the  history  of  the  period  passed,  I  imagine,  over  the 
heads  of  these  good  people  much  as  it  passes  over  our 
own.  News  reached  them,  indeed,  of  great  and  joyful 
import.  William  Peel  received  eight  livres  and  five  sous 
from  the  duchess,  when  he  brought  the  first  tidings  that 
Rouen  was  recaptured  from  the  English.^  A  little  later 
and  the  duke  sang,  in  a  truly  patriotic  vein,  the  deliver- 
ance of  Guyenne  and  Normandy.^  They  were  liberal 
of  rhymes  and  largesse,  and  welcomed  the  prosperity 
of  their  country  much  as  they  welcomed  the  coming  of 
spring,  and  with  no  more  thought  of  collaborating  to- 
ward the  event.  Religion  was  not  forgotten  in  the  Court 
of  Blois.  Pilgrimages  were  agreeable  and  picturesque 
excursions.  In  those  days  a  well-served  chapel  was 
something  like  a  good  vinery  in  our  own,  an  opportu- 
nity for  display  and  the  source  of  mild  enjoyments. 
There  was  probably  something  of  his  rooted  delight  in 
pageantry,  as  well  as  a  good  deal  of  gentle  piety,  in  the 
feelings  with  which  Charles  gave  dinner  every  Friday  to 
thirteen  poor  people,  served  them  himself,  and  washed 

1  ChampoUion-Figeac,  368.  2  Works,  i.  115. 

228 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

their  feet  with  his  own  hands. ^  Solemn  affairs  would 
interest  Charles  and  his  courtiers  from  their  trivial  side. 
The  duke  perhaps  cared  less  for  the  deliverance  of  Guy- 
enne  and  Normandy  than  for  his  own  verses  on  the  oc- 
casion; just  as  Dr.  Russell's  correspondence  in  The 
Times  was  among  the  most  material  parts  of  the  Cri- 
mean War  for  that  talented  correspondent.  And  I  think 
it  scarcely  cynical  to  suppose  that  religion  as  well  as 
patriotism  was  principally  cultivated  as  a  means  of  fill- 
ing up  the  day. 

It  was  not  only  messengers  fiery  red  with  haste  and 
charged  with  the  destiny  of  nations,  who  were  made 
welcome  at  the  gates  of  Blois.  If  any  man  of  accom- 
plishment came  that  way,  he  was  sure  of  an  audience, 
and  something  for  his  pocket.  The  courtiers  would 
have  received  Ben  Jonson  like  Drummond  of  Hawthorn- 
den,  and  a  good  pugilist  like  Captain  Barclay.  They 
were  catholic,  as  none  but  the  entirely  idle  can  be  cath- 
olic. It  might  be  Pierre,  called  Dieu  d'amours,  the  jug- 
gler; or  it  might  be  three  high  English  minstrels ;  or  the 
two  men,  players  of  ghitterns,  from  the  kingdom  of 
Scotland,  who  sang  the  destruction  of  the  Turks;  or 
again  Jehan  Rognelet,  player  of  instruments  of  music, 
who  played  and  danced  with  his  wife  and  two  children ; 
they  would  each  be  called  into  the  castle  to  give  a  taste 
of  his  proficiency  before  my  lord  the  duke.^  Sometimes 
the  performance  was  of  a  more  personal  interest,  and 
produced  much  the  same  sensations  as  are  felt  on  an 
English  green  on  the  arrival  of  a  professional  cricketer, 
or  round  an  English  billiard  table  during  a  match  be- 

1  D'Hericault's  Memoir,  xlv. 

2  Champollion-Figeac,  381,  361,  381. 

229 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

tween  Roberts  and  Cooke.  This  was  when  Jehan  Ndgre, 
the  Lombard,  came  to  Blois  and  played  chess  against  all 
these  chess-players,  and  won  much  money  from  my  lord 
and  his  intimates;  or  when  Baudet  Harenc  of  Chalons 
made  ballades  before  all  these  ballade-makers.^ 

It  will  not  surprise  the  reader  to  learn  they  were  all 
makers  of  ballades  and  rondels.  To  write  verses  for 
May  day,  seems  to  have  been  as  much  a  matter  of  course, 
as  to  ride  out  with  the  cavalcade  that  went  to  gather 
hawthorn.  The  choice  of  Valentines  was  a  standing 
challenge,  and  the  courtiers  pelted  each  other  with  hu- 
morous and  sentimental  verses  as  in  a  literary  carnival. 
If  an  indecorous  adventure  befell  our  friend  Maistre  Es- 
tienne  le  Gout,  my  lord  the  duke  would  turn  it  into  the 
funniest  of  rondels,  all  the  rhymes  being  the  names  of 
the  cases  of  nouns  or  the  moods  of  verbs ;  and  Maistre 
Estienne  would  make  reply  in  similar  fashion,  seeking 
to  prune  the  story  of  its  more  humiliating  episodes.  If 
Fredet  was  too  long  away  from  Court,  a  rondel  went  to 
upbraid  him ;  and  it  was  in  a  rondel  that  Fredet  would 
excuse  himself.  Sometimes  two  or  three,  or  as  many 
as  a  dozen,  would  set  to  work  on  the  same  refrain,  the 
same  idea,  or  in  the  same  macaronic  jargon.  Some  of 
the  poetasters  were  heavy  enough;  others  were  not 
wanting  in  address ;  and  the  duchess  herself  was  among 
those  who  most  excelled.  On  one  occasion  eleven  com- 
petitors made  a  ballade  on  the  idea, 

"  I  die  of  thirst  beside  the  fountain's  edge" 
(Je  meurs  de  soif  empres  de  la  fontaine). 

These  eleven  ballades  still  exist;  and  one  of  them  arrests 

the  attention  rather  from  the  name  of  the  author  than 

1  ChampoUion-Figeac,  359,  361. 

230 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

from  any  special  merit  in  itself.  K  purports  to  be  the 
work  of  Francois  Villon ;  and  so  far  as  a  foreigner  can 
judge  (which  is  indeed  a  small  way),  it  may  very  well 
be  his.  Nay,  and  if  any  one  thing  is  more  probable  than 
another,  in  the  great  tabula  rasa,  or  unknown  land, 
which  we  are  fain  to  call  the  biography  of  Villon,  it 
seems  probable  enough  that  he  may  have  gone  upon  a 
visit  to  Charles  of  Orleans.  Where  Master  Baudet 
Harenc,  of  Chalons,  found  a  sympathetic,  or  perhaps  a 
derisive  audience  (for  who  can  tell  nowadays  the  degree 
of  Baudet's  excellence  in  his  art  ?),  favour  would  not  be 
wanting  for  the  greatest  ballade-maker  of  all  time. 
Great  as  would  seem  the  incongruity,  it  may  have 
pleased  Charles  to  own  a  sort  of  kinship  with  ragged 
singers,  and  whimsically  regard  himself  as  one  of  the 
confraternity  of  poets.  And  he  would  have  other 
grounds  of  intimacy  with  Villon.  A  room  looking  upon 
Windsor  gardens  is  a  different  matter  from  Villon's 
dungeon  at  Meun;  yet  each  in  his  own  degree  had  been 
tried  in  prison.  Each  in  his  own  way  also,  loved  the 
good  things  of  this  life  and  the  service  of  the  Muses. 
But  the  same  gulf  that  separated  Burns  from  his  Edinburgh 
patrons  would  separate  the  singer  of  Bohemia  from  the 
rhyming  duke.  And  it  is  hard  to  imagine  that  Villon's 
training  among  thieves,  loose  women,  and  vagabond 
students,  had  fitted  him  to  move  in  a  society  of  any 
dignity  and  courtliness.  Ballades  are  very  admirable 
things ;  and  a  poet  is  doubtless  a  most  interesting  visitor. 
But  among  the  courtiers  of  Charles,  there  would  be  con- 
siderable regard  for  the  proprieties  of  etiquette;  and 
even  a  duke  will  sometimes  have  an  eye  to  his  teaspoons. 
Moreover,  as  a  poet,  I  can  conceive  he  may  have  disap- 

331 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

pointed  expectation.    It  need  surprise  nobody  if  Villon's 

ballade  on  the  theme, 

* 

"I  die  of  thirst  beside  the  fountain's  edge," 

was  but  a  poor  performance.  He  would  make  better 
verses  on  the  lee-side  of  a  flagon  at  the  sign  of  the  Pomme 
du  Pin,  than  in  a  cushioned  settle  in  the  halls  of  Blois. 

Charles  liked  change  of  place.  He  was  often,  not  so 
much  travelling  as  making  a  progress;  now  to  join  the 
king  for  some  great  tournament;  now  to  visit  King 
Rene,  at  Tarascon,  where  he  had  a  study  of  his  own 
and  saw  all  manner  of  interesting  things  —  oriental 
curios.  King  Rene  painting  birds,  and,  what  particularly 
pleased  him,  Triboulet,  the  dwarf  jester,  whose  skull- 
cap was  no  bigger  than  an  orange. ^  Sometimes  the 
journeys  were  set  about  on  horseback  in  a  large  party, 
with  the  fourriers  sent  forward  to  prepare  a  lodging  at 
the  next  stage.  We  find  almost  Gargantuan  details  of 
the  provision  made  by  these  officers  against  the  duke's 
arrival,  of  eggs  and  butter  and  bread,  cheese  and  peas 
and  chickens,  pike  and  bream  and  barbel,  and  wine 
both  white  and  red.^  Sometimes  he  went  by  water  in 
a  barge,  playing  chess  or  tables  with  a  friend  in  the  pa- 
vilion, or  watching  other  vessels  as  they  went  before 
the  wind.3  Children  ran  along  the  bank,  as  they  do 
to  this  day  on  the  Crinan  Canal ;  and  when  Charles  threw 
in  money,  they  would  dive  and  bring  it  up.*    As  he 

1  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Roy  Rene,  ii.  155,  177. 

2  Champollion-Figeac,  chaps,  v.  and  vi. 
8  Ibid.,  364;  Works,  i.  172. 

"*  Champollion-Figeac,  364:  "Jeter  de  I'argent  aux  petis  enfans  qui 
cstoient  au  long  de  Bourbon,  pour  les  faire  nonner  en  Teau  et  aller  querre 
I'argent  au  fond. " 

232 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

looked  on  at  their  exploits,  I  wonder  whether  that  room 
of  gold  and  silk  and  worsted  came  back  into  his  memory, 
with  the  device  of  little  children  in  a  river,  and  the  sky 
full  of  birds  ? 

He  was  a  bit  of  a  book-fancier,  and  had  vied  with  his 
brother  Angouleme  in  bringing  back  the  library  of  their 
grandfather  Charles  V.,  when  Bedford  put  it  up  for  sale 
in  London."^  The  duchess  had  a  library  of  her  own;  and 
we  hear  of  her  borrowing  romances  from  ladies  in  at- 
tendance on  the  blue  stocking  Margaret  of  Scotland.  ^ 
Not  only  were  books  collected,  but  new  books  were 
written  at  the  Court  of  Blois.  The  widow  of  one  Jean 
Fougere,  a  bookbinder,  seems  to  have  done  a  number 
of  odd  commissions  for  the  bibliophilous  count.  She  it 
was  who  received  three  vellum-skins  to  bind  the  duch- 
ess's Book  of  Hours,  and  who  was  employed  to  prepare 
parchment  for  the  use  of  the  duke's  scribes.  And  she 
it  was  who  bound  in  vermilion  leather  the  great  manu- 
script of  Charles's  own  poems,  which  was  presented  to 
him  by  his  secretary,  Anthony  Astesan,  with  the  text  in 
one  column,  and  Astesan's  Latin  version  in  the  other.^ 

Such  tastes,  with  the  coming  of  years,  would  doubt- 
less take  the  place  of  many  others.  We  find  in  Charles's 
verse  much  semi-ironical  regret  for  other  days,  and 
resignation  to  growing  infirmities.  He  who  had  been 
''nourished  in  the  schools  of  love,"  now  sees  nothing 
either  to  please  or  displease  him.  Old  age  has  impris- 
oned him  within  doors,  where  he  means  to  take  his 

1  Champollion-Figeac,  387. 

^Nouvelle  Biographie  Didot,  art.  "Marie  de   Cleves."     Vallet, 
Charles  VII.,  iii.  85,  note  i. 
8  Champollion-Figeac,  383,  384-386. 
333 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

ease,  and  let  younger  fellows  bestir  themselves  in  life. 
He  had  written  (in  earlier  days,  we  may  presume)  a 
bright  and  defiant  little  poem  in  praise  of  solitude.  If 
they  would  but  leave  him  alone  with  his  own  thoughts 
and  happy  recollections,  he  declared  it  was  beyond  the 
power  of  melancholy  to  affect  him.  But  now,  when 
his  animal  strength  has  so  much  declined  that  he  sings 
the  discomforts  of  winter  instead  of  the  inspirations  of 
spring,  and  he  has  no  longer  any  appetite  for  life,  he 
confesses  he  is  wretched  when  alone,  and,  to  keep  his 
mind  from  grievous  thoughts,  he  must  have  many  peo- 
ple around  him,  laughing,  talking,  and  singing.^ 

While  Charles  was  thus  falling  into  years,  the  order 
of  things,  of  which  he  was  the  outcome  and  ornament, 
was  growing  old  along  with  him.  The  semi-royalty  of 
the  princes  of  the  blood  was  already  a  thing  of  the  past; 
and  when  Charles  VII.  was  gathered  to  his  fathers,  a 
new  king  reigned  in  France,  who  seemed  every  way  the 
opposite  of  royal.  Louis  XI.  had  aims  that  were  incom- 
prehensible, and  virtues  that  were  inconceivable  to  his 
contemporaries.  But  his  contemporaries  were  able 
enough  to  appreciate  his  sordid  exterior,  and  his  cruel 
and  treacherous  spirit.  To  the  whole  nobility  of  France 
he  was  a  fatal  and  unreasonable  phenomenon.  All  such 
courts  as  that  of  Charles  at  Blois,  or  his  friend  Rene's  in 
Provence,  would  soon  be  made  impossible ;  interference 
was  the  order  of  the  day;  hunting  was  already  abol- 
ished; and  who  should  say  what  was  to  go  next? 
Louis,  in  fact,  must  have  appeared  to  Charles  primarily 
in  the  light  of  a  kill-joy.  I  take  it,  when  missionaries 
land  in  South  Sea  Islands  and  lay  strange  embargo  on 
1  Works,  ii.  57,  258. 
334 


CHARLES   OF  ORLEANS 

the  simplest  things  in  life,  the  islanders  will  not  be  much 
more  puzzled  and  irritated  than  Charles  of  Orleans  at  the 
policy  of  the  Eleventh  Louis.  There  was  one  thing,  I 
seem  to  apprehend,  that  had  always  particularly  moved 
him ;  and  that  was,  any  proposal  to  punish  a  person  of 
his  acquaintance.  No  matter  what  treason  he  may  have 
made  or  meddled  with,  an  Alen^on  or  an  Armagnac 
was  sure  to  find  Charles  reappear  from  private  life,  and 
do  his  best  to  get  him  pardoned.  He  knew  them  quite 
well.  He  had  made  rondels  with  them.  They  were 
charming  people  in  every  way.  There  must  certainly 
be  some  mistake.  Had  not  he  himself  made  anti-na- 
tional treaties  almost  before  he  was  out  of  his  nonage  ? 
And  for  the  matter  of  that,  had  not  every  one  else  done 
the  like  ?  Such  are  some  of  the  thoughts  by  which  he 
might  explain  to  himself  his  aversion  to  such  extremi- 
ties ;  but  it  was  on  a  deeper  basis  that  the  feeling  proba- 
bly reposed.  A  man  of  his  temper  could  not  fail  to  be 
impressed  at  the  thought  of  disastrous  revolutions  in  the 
fortunes  of  those  he  knew.  He  would  feel  painfully  the 
tragic  contrast,  when  those  who  had  everything  to  make 
life  valuable  were  deprived  of  life  itself.  And  it  was 
shocking  to  the  clemency  of  his  spirit,  that  sinners 
should  be  hurried  before  their  Judge  without  a  fitting 
interval  for  penitence  and  satisfaction.  It  was  this  feel- 
ing which  brought  him  at  last,  a  poor,  purblind  blue- 
bottle of  the  later  autumn,  into  collision  with  **the  uni- 
versal spider,"  Louis  XI.  He  took  up  the  defence  of 
the  Duke  of  Brittany  at  Tours.  But  Louis  was  then  in 
no  humour  to  hear  Charles's  texts  and  Latin  sentiments; 
he  had  his  back  to  the  wall,  the  future  of  France  was 
at  stake;   and  if  all  the  old  men   in  the  world   had 

233 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND   BOOKS 

crossed  his  path,  they  would  have  had  the  rough  side 
of  his  tongue  like  Charles  of  Orleans.  I  have  found  no- 
where what  he  said,  but  it  seems  it  was  monstrously  to 
the  point,  and  so  rudely  conceived  that  the  old  duke 
never  recovered  the  indignity.  He  got  home  as  far  as 
Amboise,  sickened,  and  died  two  days  after  (Jan.  4, 
1465),  in  the  seventy-fourth  year  of  his  age.  And  so  a 
whiff  of  pungent  prose  stopped  the  issue  of  melodious 
rondels  to  the  end  of  time. 


The  futility  of  Charles's  public  life  was  of  a  piece 
throughout.  He  never  succeeded  in  any  single  purpose 
he  set  before  him;  for  his  deliverance  from  England, 
after  twenty-five  years  of  failure  and  at  the  cost  of  dig- 
nity and  consistency,  it  would  be  ridiculously  hyperbol- 
ical to  treat  as  a  success.  During  the  first  part  of  his  life 
he  was  the  stalking  horse  of  Bernard  d'Armagnac;  dur- 
ing the  second,  he  was  the  passive  instrument  of  Eng- 
lish diplomatists ;  and  before  he  was  well  entered  on  the 
third,  he  hastened  to  become  the  dupe  and  catspaw  of 
Burgundian  treason.  On  each  of  these  occasions,  a 
strong  and  not  dishonourable  personal  motive  deter- 
mined his  behaviour.  In  1407  and  the  following  years, 
he  had  his  father's  murder  uppermost  in  his  mind.  Dur- 
ing his  English  captivity,  that  thought  was  displaced  by 
a  more  immediate  desire  for  his  own  liberation.  In  1440 
a  sentiment  of  gratitude  to  Philip  of  Burgundy  blinded 
him  to  all  else,  and  led  him  to  break  with  the  tradition 
of  his  party  and  his  own  former  life.  He  was  born  a 
great  vassal,  and  he  conducted  himself  like  a  private 

2^6 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

gentleman.  He  began  life  in  a  showy  and  brilliant 
enough  fashion,  by  the  light  of  a  petty  personal  chivalry. 
He  was  not  without  some  tincture  of  patriotism ;  but  it 
was  resolvable  into  two  parts:  a  preference  for  life 
among  his  fellow-countrymen,  and  a  barren  point  of 
honour.  In  England,  he  could  comfort  himself  by  the 
reflection  that  *'he  had  been  taken  while  loyally  doing 
his  devoir,"  without  any  misgiving  as  to  his  conduct  in 
the  previous  years,  when  he  had  prepared  the  disaster 
of  Agincourt  by  wasteful  feud.  This  unconsciousness 
of  the  larger  interests  is  perhaps  most  happily  exampled 
out  of  his  own  mouth.  When  Alen9on  stood  accused 
of  betraying  Normandy  into  the  hands  of  the  English, 
Charles  made  a  speech  in  his  defence,  from  which  I  have 
already  quoted  more  than  once.  Alen^on,  he  said,  had 
professed  a  great  love  and  trust  toward  him;  ''yet  did 
he  give  no  great  proof  thereof,  when  he  sought  to  be- 
tray Normandy ;  whereby  he  would  have  made  me  lose 
an  estate  of  10,000  livres  a  year,  and  might  have  occa- 
sioned the  destruction  of  the  kingdom  and  of  all  us 
Frenchmen."  These  are  the  words  of  one,  mark  you, 
against  whom  Gloucester  warned  the  English  Council 
because  of  his  "great  subtility  and  cautelous  disposi- 
tion." It  is  not  hard  to  excuse  the  impatience  of  Louis 
XL,  if  such  stuff  was  foisted  on  him  by  way  of  political 
deliberation. 

This  incapacity  to  see  things  with  any  greatness,  this 
obscure  and  narrow  view,  was  fundamentally  charac- 
teristic of  the  man  as  well  as  of  the  epoch.  It  is  not 
even  so  striking  in  his  public  life,  where  he  failed,  as  in 
his  poems,  where  he  notably  succeeded.  For  wherever 
we  might  expect  a  poet  to  be  unintelligent,  it  certainly 

237 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

would  not  be  in  his  poetry.  And  Charles  is  unintelli- 
gent even  there.  Of  all  authors  whom  a  modern  may 
still  read  and  read  over  again  with  pleasure,  he  has  per- 
haps the  least  to  say.  His  poems  seem  to  bear  testi- 
mony rather  to  the  fashion  of  rhyming,  which  distin- 
guished the  age,  than  to  any  special  vocation  in  the 
man  himself.  Some  of  them  are  drawing-room  exer- 
cises, and  the  rest  seem  made  by  habit.  Great  writers 
are  struck  with  something  in  nature  or  society,  with 
which  they  become  pregnant  and  longing;  they  are  pos- 
sessed with  an  idea,  and  cannot  be  at  peace  until  they 
have  put  it  outside  of  them  in  some  distinct  embodi- 
ment. '  But  with  Charles  literature  was  an  object  rather 
than  a  mean;  he  was  one  who  loved  bandying  words 
for  its  own  sake;  the  rigidity  of  intricate  metrical  forms 
stood  him  in  lieu  of  precise  thought ;  instead  of  commu- 
nicating truth,  he  observed  the  laws  of  a  game;  and 
when  he  had  no  one  to  challenge  at  chess  or  rackets,  he 
made  verses  in  a  wager  against  himself.  From  the  very 
idleness  of  the  man's  mind,  and  not  from  intensity  of 
feeling,  it  happens  that  all  his  poems  are  more  or  less 
autobiographical.  But  they  form  an  autobiography  sin- 
gularly bald  and  uneventful.  Little  is  therein  recorded 
beside  sentiments.  Thoughts,  in  any  true  sense,  he  had 
none  to  record.  And  if  we  can  gather  that  he  had  been 
a  prisoner  in  England,  that  he  had  lived  in  the  Orlean- 
nese,  and  that  he  hunted  and  went  in  parties  of  pleas- 
ure, 1  believe  it  is  about  as  much  definite  experience  as 
is  to  be  found  in  all  these  five  hundred  pages  of  autobi- 
ographical verse.  Doubtless,  we  find  here  and  there  a 
complaint  on  the  progress  of  the  infirmities  of  age. 
Doubtless,  he  feels  the  great  change  of  the  year,  and 

238 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

distinguishes  winter  from  spring ;  winter  as  the  time  of 
snow  and  the  fireside;  spring  as  the  return  of  grass  and 
flowers,  the  time  of  St.  Valentine's  day  and  a  beating 
heart.  And  he  feels  love  after  a  fashion.  Again  and 
again,  we  learn  that  Charles  of  Orleans  is  in  love,  and 
hear  him  ring  the  changes  through  the  whole  gamut  of 
dainty  and  tender  sentiment.  But  there  is  never  a  spark 
of  passion ;  and  heaven  alone  knows  whether  there  was 
any  real  woman  in  the  matter,  or  the  whole  thing  was 
an  exercise  in  fancy.  If  these  poems  were  indeed  in- 
spired by  some  living  mistress,  one  would  think  he  had 
never  seen,  never  heard,  and  never  touched  her.  There 
is  nothing  in  any  one  of  these  so  numerous  love-songs 
to  indicate  who  or  what  the  lady  was.  Was  she  dark 
or  fair,  passionate  or  gentle  like  himself,  witty  or  sim- 
ple ?  Was  it  always  one  woman  ?  or  are  there  a  dozen 
here  immortalised  in  cold  indistinction  ?  The  old  Eng- 
lish translator  mentions  grey  eyes  in  his  version  of  one 
of  the  amorous  rondels ;  so  far  as  I  remember,  he  was 
driven  by  some  emergency  of  the  verse ;  but  in  the  ab- 
sence of  all  sharp  lines  of  character  and  anything  spe- 
cific, we  feel  for  the  moment  a  sort  of  surprise,  as  though 
the  epithet  were  singularly  happy  and  unusual,  or  as 
though  we  had  made  our  escape  from  cloudland  into 
something  tangible  and  sure.  The  measure  of  Charles's 
indifference  to  all  that  now  preoccupies  and  excites  a 
poet,  is  best  given  by  a  positive  example.  If,  besides 
the  coming  of  spring,  any  one  external  circumstance 
may  be  said  to  have  struck  his  imagination,  it  was  the 
despatch  of  fourrters,  while  on  a  journey,  to  prepare 
the  night's  lodging.  This  seems  to  be  his  favourite  im- 
age ;  it  appears  like  the  upas-tree  in  the  early  work  of 

239 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Coleridge:  we  may  judge  with  what  childish  eyes  he 
looked  upon  the  world,  if  one  of  the  sights  which  most 
impressed  him  was  that  of  a  man  going  to  order  dinner. 

Although  they  are  not  inspired  by  any  deeper  motive 
than  the  common  run  of  contemporaneous  drawing- 
room  verses,  those  of  Charles  of  Orleans  are  executed 
with  inimitable  lightness  and  delicacy  of  touch.  They 
deal  with  floating  and  colourless  sentiments,  and  the 
writer  is  never  greatly  moved,  but  he  seems  always 
genuine.  He  makes  no  attempt  to  set  off  thin  concep- 
tions with  a  multiplicity  of  phrases.  His  ballades  are 
generally  thin  and  scanty  of  import;  for  the  ballade  pre- 
sented too  large  a  canvas,  and  he  was  preoccupied  by 
technical  requirements.  But  in  the  rondel  he  has  put 
himself  before  all  competitors  by  a  happy  knack  and  a 
prevailing  distinction  of  manner.  He  is  very  much  more 
of  a  duke  in  his  verses  than  in  his  absurd  and  inconse- 
quential career  as  a  statesman;  and  how  he  shows  him- 
self a  duke  is  precisely  by  the  absence  of  all  pretension, 
turgidity,  or  emphasis.  He  turns  verses,  as  he  would 
have  come  into  the  king's  presence,  with  a  quiet  accom- 
plishment of  grace. 

Theodore  de  Banville,  the  youngest  poet  of  a  famous 
generation  now  nearly  extinct,  and  himself  a  sure  and 
finished  artist,  knocked  off,  in  his  happiest  vein,  a  few 
experiments  in  imitation  of  Charles  of  Orleans.  I  would 
recommend  these  modern  rondels  to  all  who  care  about 
the  old  duke,  not  only  because  they  are  delightful  in 
themselves,  but  because  they  serve  as  a  contrast  to 
throw  into  relief  the  peculiarities  of  their  model.  When 
De  Banville  revives  a  forgotten  form  of  verse  —  and  he 
has  already  had  the  honour  of  reviving  the  ballade  —  he 

240 


CHARLES  OF  ORLEANS 

does  it  in  the  spirit  of  a  workman  choosing  a  good  tool 
wherever  he  can  find  one,  and  not  at  all  in  that  of  the 
dilettante,  who  seeks  to  renew  bygone  forms  of  thought 
and  make  historic  forgeries.  With  the  ballade  this 
seemed  natural  enough ;  for  in  connection  with  ballades 
the  mind  recurs  to  Villon,  and  Villon  was  almost  more 
of  a  modern  than  De  Banville  himself  But  in  the  case 
of  the  rondel,  a  comparison  is  challenged  with  Charles 
of  Orleans,  and  the  difference  between  two  ages  and 
two  literatures  is  illustrated  in  a  few  poems  of  thirteen 
lines.  Something,  certainly,  has  been  retained  of  the 
old  movement;  the  refrain  falls  in  time  like  a  well- 
played  bass;  and  the  very  brevity  of  the  thing,  by 
hampering  and  restraining  the  greater  fecundity  of  the 
modern  mind,  assists  the  imitation.  But  De  Banville's 
poems  are  full  of  form  and  colour;  they  smack  racily  of 
modern  life,  and  own  small  kindred  with  the  verse  of 
other  days,  when  it  seems  as  if  men  walked  by  twilight, 
seeing  little,  and  that  with  distracted  eyes,  and  instead 
of  blood,  some  thin  and  spectral  fluid  circulated  in  their 
veins.  They  might  gird  themselves  for  battle,  make 
love,  eat  and  drink,  and  acquit  themselves  manfully  in 
all  the  external  parts  of  life ;  but  of  the  life  that  is  within, 
and  those  processes  by  which  we  render  ourselves  an 
intelligent  account  of  what  we  feel  and  do,  and  so  rep- 
resent experience  that  we  for  the  first  time  make  it  ours, 
they  had  only  a  loose  and  troubled  possession.  They 
beheld  or  took  part  in  great  events,  but  there  was  no 
answerable  commotion  in  their  reflective  being;  and 
they  passed  throughout  turbulent  epochs  in  a  sort  of 
ghostly  quiet  and  abstraction.  Feeling  seems  to  have 
been  strangely  disproportioned  to  the  occasion,  and  words 

241 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

were  laughably  trivial  and  scanty  to  set  forth  the  feeling 
even  such  as  it  was.  Juvenal  des  Ursins  chronicles 
calamity  after  calamity,  with  but  one  comment  for  them 
all:  that  "it  was  great  pity."  Perhaps,  after  too  much 
of  our  florid  literature,  we  find  an  adventitious  charm 
in  what  is  so  different;  and  while  the  big  drums  are 
beaten  every  day  by  perspiring  editors  over  the  loss  of 
a  cock-boat  or  the  rejection  of  a  clause,  and  nothing  is 
heard  that  is  not  proclaimed  with  sound  of  trumpet,  it 
is  not  wonderful  if  we  retire  with  pleasure  into  old 
books,  and  listen  to  authors  who  speak  small  and  clear, 
as  if  in  a  private  conversation.  Truly  this  is  so  with 
Charles  of  Orleans.  We  are  pleased  to  find  a  small  man 
without  the  buskin,  and  obvious  sentiments  stated 
without  affectation.  If  the  sentiments  are  obvious, there 
is  all  the  more  chance  we  may  have  experienced  the 
like.  As  we  turn  over  the  leaves,  we  may  find  ourselves 
in  sympathy  with  some  one  or  other  of  these  staid  joys 
and  smiling  sorrows.  If  we  do  we  shall  be  strangely 
pleased,  for  there  is  a  genuine  pathos  in  these  simple 
words,  and  the  lines  go  with  a  lilt,  and  sing  themselves 
to  music  of  their  own. 


SAMUEL    PEPYS 

IN  two  books  a  fresh  light  has  recently  been  thrown 
on  the  character  and  position  of  Samuel  Pepys.  Mr. 
Mynors  Bright  has  given  us  a  new  transcription  of  the 
Diary,  increasing  it  in  bulk  by  near  a  third,  correcting 
many  errors,  and  completing  our  knowledge  of  the  man 
in  some  curious  and  important  points.  We  can  only 
regret  that  he  has  taken  liberties  with  the  author  and 
the  public.  It  is  no  part  of  the  duties  of  the  editor  of 
an  established  classic  to  decide  what  may  or  may  not 
be  "tedious  to  the  reader."  The  book  is  either  an  his- 
torical document  or  not,  and  in  condemning  Lord  Bray- 
brooke  Mr.  Bright  condemns  himself  As  for  the 
time-honored  phrase,  "unfit  for  publication,"  without 
being  cynical,  we  may  regard  it  as  the  sign  of  a  precau- 
tion more  or  less  commercial;  and  we  may  think,  with- 
out being  sordid,  that  when  we  purchase  six  huge  and 
distressingly  expensive  volumes,  we  are  entitled  to  be 
treated  rather  more  like  scholars  and  rather  less  like 
children.  But  Mr.  Bright  may  rest  assured :  while  we 
complain,  we  are  still  grateful.  Mr.  Wheatley,  to  divide 
our  obligation,  brings  together,  clearly  and  with  no  lost 
words,  a  body  of  illustrative  material.  Sometimes  we 
might  ask  a  little  more ;  never,  I  think,  less.     And  as  a 

243 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN  AND  BOOKS 

matter  of  fact,  a  great  part  of  Mr.  •  Wheatley's  volume 
might  be  transferred,  by  a  good  editor  of  Pepys,  to  the 
margin  of  the  text,  for  it  is  precisely  what  the  reader 
wants. 

In  the  light  of  these  two  books,  at  least,  we  have 
now  to  read  our  author.  Between  them  they  contain  all 
we  can  expect  to  learn  for,  it  may  be,  many  years.  Now, 
if  ever,  we  should  be  able  to  form  some  notion  of  that 
unparalleled  figure  in  the  annals  of  mankind  —  unparal- 
leled for  three  good  reasons :  first,  because  he  was  a  man 
known  to  his  contemporaries  in  a  halo  of  almost  histor- 
ical pomp,  and  to  his  remote  descendants  with  an  in- 
decent familiarity,  like  a  tap-room  comrade;  second, 
because  he  has  outstripped  all  competitors  in  the  art  or 
virtue  of  a  conscious  honesty  about  oneself;  and,  third, 
because,  being  in  many  ways  a  very  ordinary  person,  he 
has  yet  placed  himself  before  the  public  eye  with  such  a 
fulness  and  such  an  intimacy  of  detail  as  might  be  en- 
vied by  a  genius  like  Montaigne.  Not  then  for  his  own 
sake  only,  but  as  a  character  in  a  unique  position,  en- 
dowed with  a  unique  talent,  and  shedding  a  unique  light 
upon  the  lives  of  the  mass  of  mankind,  he  is  surely 
worthy  of  prolonged  and  patient  study. 

THE  DIARY 

That  there  should  be  such  a  book  as  Pepys's  Diary  is 
incomparably  strange.  Pepys,  in  a  corrupt  and  idle 
period,  played  the  man  in  public  employments,  toiling 
hard  and  keeping  his  honour  bright.  Much  of  the  little 
good  that  is  set  down  to  James  the  Second  comes  by 
right  to  Pepys ;  and  if  it  were  little  for  a  king,  it  is  much 

H4 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

for  a  subordinate.  To  his  clear,  capable  head  was  ow- 
ing somewhat  of  the  greatness  of  England  on  the  seas. 
In  the  exploits  of  Hawke,  Rodney,  or  Nelson,  this  dead 
Mr.  Pepys  of  the  Navy  Office  had  some  considerable 
share.  He  stood  well  by  his  business  in  the  appalling 
plague  of  1666.  He  was  loved  and  respected  by  some 
of  the  best  and  wisest  men  in  England.  He  was  Pres- 
ident of  the  Royal  Society ;  and  when  he  came  to  die, 
people  said  of  his  conduct  in  that  solemn  hour  —  think- 
ing it  needless  to  say  more  —  that  it  was  answerable  to 
the  greatness  of  his  life.  Thus  he  walked  in  dignity, 
guards  of  soldiers  sometimes  attending  him  in  his  walks, 
subalterns  bowing  before  his  periwig ;  and  when  he  ut- 
tered his  thoughts  they  were  suitable  to  his  state  and 
services.  On  February  8,  1668,  we  find  him  writing  to 
Evelyn,  his  mind  bitterly  occupied  with  the  late  Dutch 
war,  and  some  thoughts  of  the  different  story  of  the  re- 
pulse of  the  Great  Armada:  "Sir,  you  will  not  wonder 
at  the  backwardness  of  my  thanks  for  the  present  you 
made  me,  so  many  days  since,  of  the  Prospect  of  the 
Medway,  while  the  Hollander  rode  master  in  it,  when 
I  have  told  you  that  the  sight  of  it  hath  led  me  to  such 
reflections  on  my  particular  interest,  by  my  employment, 
in  the  reproach  due  to  that  miscarriage,  as  have  given 
me  little  less  disquiet  than  he  is  fancied  to  have  who 
found  his  face  in  Michael  Angelo's  hell.  The  same 
should  serve  me  also  in  excuse  for  my  silence  in  cele- 
brating your  mastery  shown  in  the  design  and  draught, 
did  not  indignation  rather  than  courtship  urge  me  so 
far  to  commend  them,  as  to  wish  the  furniture  of  our 
House  of  Lords  changed  from  the  story  of  '88  to  that  of 
^67  (of  Evelyn's  designing),  till  the  pravity  of  this  were 

245 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND  BOOKS 

reformed  to  the  temper  of  that  age,  wherein  God  Al- 
mighty found  his  blessings  more  operative  than,  I  fear^ 
he  doth  in  ours  his  judgments." 

This  is  a  letter  honourable  to  the  writer,  where  the 
meaning  rather  than  the  words  is  eloquent.  Such  was 
the  account  he  gave  of  himself  to  his  contemporaries; 
such  thoughts  he  chose  to  utter,  and  in  such  language: 
giving  himself  out  for  a  grave  and  patriotic  public  ser- 
vant. We  turn  to  the  same  date  in  the  Diary  by  which 
he  is  known,  after  two  centuries,  to  his  descendants. 
The  entry  begins  in  the  same  key  with  the  letter,  blam- 
ing the  *  *  madness  of  the  House  of  Commons  "  and  *  *  the 
base  proceedings,  just  the  epitome  of  all  our  public  pro- 
ceedings in  this  age,  of  the  House  of  Lords;  "  and  then, 
without  the  least  transition,  this  is  how  our  diarist  pro- 
ceeds: *'To  the  Strand,  to  my  bookseller's,  and  there 
bought  an  idle,  rogueish  French  book,  L'cscholle  des 
Filles,  which  I  have  bought  in  plain  binding,  avoiding 
the  buying  of  it  better  bound,  because  I  resolve,  as  soon 
as  I  have  read  it,  to  burn  it,  that  it  may  not  stand  in  the 
list  of  books,  nor  among  them,  to  disgrace  them,  if  it 
should  be  found."  Even  in  our  day,  when  responsi- 
bility is  so  much  more  clearly  apprehended,  the  man 
who  wrote  the  letter  would  be  notable  ;  but  what 
about  the  man,  I  do  not  say  who  bought  a  roguish 
book,  but  who  was  ashamed  of  doing  so,  yet  did  it,  and 
recorded  both  the  doing  and  the  shame  in  the  pages  of 
his  daily  journal } 

We  all,  whether  we  write  or  speak,  must  somewhat 
drape  ourselves  when  we  address  our  fellows ;  at  a  given 
moment  we  apprehend  our  character  and  acts  by  some  par- 
ticular side;  we  are  merry  with  one,  grave  with  another, 

146 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

as  befits  the  nature  and  demands  of  the  relation.  Pepys's 
letter  to  Evelyn  would  have  little  in  common  with  that 
other  one  to  Mrs.  Knipp  which  he  signed  by  the  pseu- 
donym of  Dapper  Dicky  ;  yet  each  would  be  suitable  to 
the  character  of  his  correspondent.  There  is  no  untruth 
in  this,  for  man,  being  a  Protean  animal,  swiftly  shares 
and  changes  with  his  company  and  surroundings ;  and 
these  changes  are  the  better  part  of  his  education  in  the 
world.  To  strike  a  posture  once  for  all,  and  to  march 
through  life  like  a  drum-major,  is  to  be  highly  disagree- 
able to  others  and  a  fool  for  oneself  into  the  bargain. 
To  Evelyn  and  to  Knipp  we  understand  the  double 
facing ;  but  to  whom  was  he  posing  in  the  Diary,  and 
what,  in  the  name  of  astonishment,  was  the  nature  of 
the  pose  }  Had  he  suppressed  all  mention  of  the  book, 
or  had  he  bought  it,  gloried  in  the  act,  and  cheerfully  re- 
corded his  glorification,  in  either  case  we  should  have 
made  him  out.  But  no ;  he  is  full  of  precautions  to  con- 
ceal the  " disgrace"  of  the  purchase,  and  yet  speeds  to 
chronicle  the  whole  affair  in  pen  and  ink.  It  is  a  sort  of 
anomaly  in  human  action,  which  we  can  exactly  paral- 
lel from  another  part  of  the  Diary. 

Mrs.  Pepys  had  written  a  paper  of  her  too  just  com- 
plaints against  her  husband,  and  written  it  in  plain  and 
very  pungent  English.  Pepys,  in  an  agony  lest  the 
world  should  come  to  see  it,  brutally  seizes  and  destroys 
the  tell-tale  document;  and  then  —  you  disbelieve  your 
eyes  —  down  goes  the  whole  story  with  unsparing  truth 
and  in  the  cruellest  detail.  It  seems  he  has  no  design 
but  to  appear  respectable,  and  here  he  keeps  a  private 
book  to  prove  he  was  not.  You  are  at  first  faintly  re- 
minded of  some  of  the  vagaries  of  the  morbid  religious 

M7 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

diarist;  but  at  a  moment's  thought  the  resemblance  dis- 
appears. The  design  of  Pepys  is  not  at  all  to  edify ;  it 
is  not  from  repentance  that  he  chronicles  his  peccadilloes, 
for  he  tells  us  when  he  does  repent,  and,  to  be  just  to 
himj  there  often  follows  some  improvement.  Again,  the 
sins  of  the  religious  diarist  are  of  a  very  formal  pattern, 
and  are  told  with  an  elaborate  whine.  But  in  Pepys 
you  come  upon  good,  substantive  misdemeanours; 
beams  in  his  eye  of  which  he  alone  remains  uncon- 
scious; healthy  outbreaks  of  the  animal  nature,  and 
laughable  subterfuges  to  himself  that  always  command 
belief  and  often  engage  the  sympathies. 

Pepys  was  a  young  man  for  his  age,  came  slowly  to 
himself  in  the  world,  sowed  his  wild  oats  late,  took  late 
to  industry,  and  preserved  till  nearly  forty  the  headlong 
gusto  of  a  boy.  So,  to  come  rightly  at  the  spirit  in 
which  the  Diary  was  written,  we  must  recall  a  class  of 
sentiments  which  with  most  of  us  are  over  and  done 
before  the  age  of  twelve.  In  our  tender  years  we  still 
preserve  a  freshness  of  surprise  at  our  prolonged  exist- 
ence; events  make  an  impression  out  of  all  proportion 
to  their  consequence;  we  are  unspeakably  touched  by 
our  own  past  adventures,  and  look  forward  to  our  future 
personality  with  sentimental  interest.  It  was  something 
of  this,  1  think,  that  clung  to  Pepys.  Although  not  sen- 
timental in  the  abstract,  he  was  sweetly  sentimentaC 
about  himself  His  own  past  clung  about  his  heart,  an 
evergreen.  He  was  the  slave  of  an  association.  He 
could  not  pass  by  Islington,  where  his  father  used  to 
carry  him  to  cakes  and  ale,  but  he  must  light  at  the 
"  King's  Head"  and  eat  and  drink  *'for  remembrance 
of  the  old  house  sake."    He  counted  it  good  fortune  to 

248 


SAMUEL   PEPYS 

lie  a  night  at  Epsom  to  renew  his  old  walks,  ''where 
Mrs.  Hely  and  I  did  use  to  walk  and  talk,  with  whom  I 
had  the  first  sentiments  of  love  and  pleasure  in  a  wom- 
an's company,  discourse  and  taking  her  by  the  hand, 
she  being  a  pretty  woman."  He  goes  about  weighing 
up  the  Assurance,  which  lay  near  Woolwich  under 
water,  and  cries  in  a  parenthesis,  ''Poor  ship,  that  I 
have  been  twice  merry  in,  in  Captain  Holland's  time;" 
and  after  revisiting  the  Naseby,  now  changed  into  the 
Charles,  he  confesses  "  it  was  a  great  pleasure  to  myself 
to  see  the  ship  that  I  began  my  good  fortune  in."  The 
stone  that  he  was  cut  for  he  preserved  in  a  case ;  and  to 
the  Turners  he  kept  alive  such  gratitude  for  their  assist- 
ance that  for  years,  and  after  he  had  begun  to  mount 
himself  into  higher  zones,  he  continued  to  have  that 
family  to  dinner  on  the  anniversary  of  the  operation. 
Not  Hazlitt  nor  Rousseau  had  a  more  romantic  passion 
for  their  past,  although  at  times  they  might  express  it 
more  romantically ;  and  if  Pepys  shared  with  them  this 
childish  fondness,  did  not  Rousseau,  who  left  behind 
him  the  Confessions,  or  Hazlitt,  who  wrote  the  Liber 
Amoris,  and  loaded  his  essays  with  loving  personal  de- 
tail, share  with  Pepys  in  his  unwearied  egotism  }  For 
the  two  things  go  hand  in  hand ;  or,  to  be  more  exact, 
it  is  the  first  that  makes  the  second  either  possible  or 
pleasing. 

But,  to  be  quite  in  sympathy  with  Pepys,  we  must 
return  once  more  to  the  experience  of  children.  I  can 
remember  to  have  written,  in  the  fly-leaf  of  more  than 
one  book,  the  date  and  the  place  where  I  then  was  —  if, 
for  instance,  I  was  ill  in  bed  or  sitting  in  a  certain  gar- 
den ;  these  were  jottings  for  my  future  self;  if  I  should 

249 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

chance  on  such  a  note  in  after  years,  I  thought  it  would 
cause  me  a  particular  thrill  to  recognise  myself  across 
the  intervening  distance.  Indeed,  I  might  come  upon 
them  now,  and  not  be  moved  one  tittle  —  which  shows 
that  I  have  comparatively  failed  in  life,  and  grown  older 
than  Samuel  Pepys.  For  in  the  Diary  we  can  fmd  more 
than  one  such  note  of  perfect  childish  egotism ;  as  when 
he  explains  that  his  candle  is  going  out,  "  which  makes 
me  write  thus  slobberingly ; "  or  as  in  this  incredible 
particularity,  **To  my  study,  where  I  only  wrote  thus 
much  of  this  day's  passages  to  this*,  and  so  out  again ; " 
or  lastly,  as  here,  with  more  of  circumstance:  "  I  staid 
up  till  the  bellman  came  by  with  his  bell  under  my  win- 
dow, as  I  was  writing  of  this  very  line,  and  cried,  *  Past 
one  of  the  clock,  and  a  cold,  frosty,  windy  morning.'" 
Such  passages  are  not  to  be  misunderstood.  The  appeal 
to  Samuel  Pepys  years  hence  is  unmistakable.  He  de- 
sires that  dear,  though  unknown,  gentleman  keenly  to 
realise  his  predecessor;  to  remember  why  a  passage 
was  uncleanly  written;  to  recall  (let  us  fancy,  with  a 
sigh)  the  tones  of  the  bellman,  the  chill  of  the  early, 
windy  morning,  and  the  very  line  his  own  romantic  self 
was  scribing  at  the  moment.  The  man,  you  will  per- 
ceive, was  making  reminiscences  —  a  sort  of  pleasure 
by  ricochet,  which  comforts  many  in  distress,  and  turns 
some  others  into  sentimental  libertines :  and  the  whole 
book,  if  you  will  but  look  at  it  in  that  way,  is  seen  to 
be  a  work  of  art  to  Pepys's  own  address. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  key  to  that  remarkable  atti- 
tude preserved  by  him  throughout  his  Diary,  to  that  un- 
flinching—  I  had  almost  said,  that  unintelligent  —  sin- 
cerity which  makes  it  a  miracle  among  human  books. 

330 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

He  was  not  unconscious  of  his  errors  —  far  from  it;  he 
was  often  startled  into  shame,  often  reformed,  often 
made  and  broke  his  vows  of  change.  But  whether  he 
did  ill  or  well,  he  was  still  his  own  unequalled  self;  still 
that  entrancing  ego  of  whom  alone  he  cared  to  write; 
and  still  sure  of  his  own  affectionate  indulgence,  when 
the  parts  should  be  changed,  and  the  writer  come  to 
read  what  he  had  written.  Whatever  he  did,  or  said, 
or  thought,  or  suffered,  it  was  still  a  trait  of  Pepys,  a 
character  of  his  career;  and  as,  to  himself,  he  was  more 
interesting  than  Moses  or  than  Alexander,  so  all  should 
be  faithfully  set  down.  I  have  called  his  Diary  a  work 
of  art.  Now  when  the  artist  has  found  something,  word 
or  deed,  exactly  proper  to  a  favourite  character  in  play 
or  novel,  he  will  neither  suppress  nor  diminish  it,  though 
the  remark  be  silly  or  the  act  mean.  The  hesitation  of 
Hamlet,  the  credulity  of  Othello,  the  baseness  of  Emma 
Bovary,  or  the  irregularities  of  Mr.  Swiveller,  caused 
neither  disappointment  nor  disgust  to  their  creators. 
And  so  with  Pepys  and  his  adored  protagonist :  adored 
not  blindly,  but  with  trenchant  insight  and  enduring, 
human  toleration.  I  have  gone  over  and  over  the  greater 
part  of  the  Diary ;  and  the  points  where,  to  the  most  sus- 
picious scrutiny,  he  has  seemed  not  perfectly  sincere, 
are  so  few,  so  doubtful,  and  so  petty,  that  I  am  ashamed 
to  name  them.  It  may  be  said  that  we  all  of  us  write 
such  a  diary  in  airy  characters  upon  our  brain;  but  I 
fear  there  is  a  distinction  to  be  made;  I  fear  that  as  we 
render  to  our  consciousness  an  account  of  our  daily  for- 
tunes and  behaviour,  we  too  often  weave  a  tissue  of  ro- 
mantic compliments  and  dull  excuses ;  and  even  if  Pepys 
were  the  ass  and  coward  that  men  call  him,  we  must 

251 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

take  rank  as  sillier  and  more  cowardly  than  he.  The 
bald  truth  about  oneself,  what  we  are  all  too  timid  to 
admit  when  we  are  not  too  dull  to  see  it,  that  was  what 
he  saw  clearly  and  set  down  unsparingly. 

It  is  improbable  that  the  Diary  can  have  been  carried 
on  in  the  same  single  spirit  in  which  it  was  begun. 
Pepys  was  not  such  an  ass,  but  he  must  have  perceived, 
as  he  went  on,  the  extraordinary  nature  of  the  work  he 
was  producing.  He  was  a  great  reader,  and  he  knew 
what  other  books  were  like.  It  must,  at  least,  have 
crossed  his  mind  that  some  one  might  ultimately  deci- 
pher the  manuscript,  and  he  himself,  with  all  his  pains 
and  pleasures,  be  resuscitated  in  some  later  day ;  and  the 
thought,  although  discouraged,  must  have  warmed  his 
heart.  He  was  not  such  an  ass,  besides,  but  he  must  have 
been  conscious  of  the  deadly  explosives,  the  gun-cotton 
and  the  giant  powder,  he  was  hoarding  in  his  drawer. 
Let  some  contemporary  light  upon  the  Journal,  and 
Pepys  was  plunged  forever  in  social  and  political  dis- 
grace. We  can  trace  the  growth  of  his  terrors  by  two 
facts.  In  1660,  while  the  Diary  was  still  in  its  youth,  he 
tells  about  it,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  a  lieutenant  in  the 
navy;  but  in  1669,  when  it  was  already  near  an  end,  he 
could  have  bitten  his  tongue  out,  as  the  saying  is,  be- 
cause he  had  let  slip  his  secret  to  one  so  grave  and 
friendly  as  Sir  William  Coventry.  And  from  two  other 
facts  I  think  we  may  infer  that  he  had  entertained,  even 
if  he  had  not  acquiesced  in,  the  thought  of  a  far-distant 
publicity.  The  first  is  of  capital  importance:  the  Diary 
was  not  destroyed.  The  second  —  that  he  took  unusual 
precautions  to  confound  the  cipher  in  **rogueish  "  pas- 
sages —  proves,  beyond  question,  that  he  was  thinking 

252 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

of  some  Other  reader  besides  himself.  Perhaps  while  his 
friends  were  admiring  the  "greatness  of  his  behaviour" 
at  the  approach  of  death,  he  may  have  had  a  twinkling 
hope  of  immortality.  Mens  cujusque  is  est  quisque,  said 
his  chosen  motto ;  and,  as  he  had  stamped  his  mind  with 
every  crook  and  foible  in  the  pages  of  the  Diary,  he 
might  feel  that  what  he  left  behind  him  was  indeed  him- 
self There  is  perhaps  no  other  instance  so  remarkable 
of  the  desire  of  man  for  publicity  and  an  enduring  name. 
The  greatness  of  his  life  was  open,  yet  he  longed  to 
communicate  its  smallness  also;  and,  while  contempo- 
raries bowed  before  him,  he  must  buttonhole  posterity 
with  the  news  that  his  periwig  was  once  alive  with  nits. 
But  this  thought,  although  I  cannot  doubt  he  had  it,  was 
neither  his  first  nor  his  deepest ;  it  did  not  colour  one 
word  that  he  wrote ;  and  the  Diary,  for  as  long  as  he 
kept  it,  remained  what  it  was  when  he  began,  a  private 
pleasure  for  himself.  It  was  his  bosom  secret ;  it  added 
a  zest  to  all  his  pleasures;  he  lived  in  and  for  it,  and 
might  well  write  these  solemn  words,  when  he  closed 
that  confidant  forever:  "And  so  I  betake  myself  to  that 
course  which  is  almost  as  much  as  to  see  myself  go  into 
the  grave ;  for  which,  and  all  the  discomforts  that  will 
accompany  my  being  blind,  the  good  God  prepare  me." 

A   LIBERAL   GENIUS 

Pepys  spent  part  of  a  certain  winter  Sunday,  when  he 
had  taken  physic,  composing  "a  song  in  praise  of  a  lib- 
eral genius  (such  as  I  take  my  own  to  be)  to  all  studies 
and  pleasures."  The  song  was  unsuccessful,  but  the 
Diary  is,  in  a  sense,  the  very  song  that  he  was  seeking ; 

253 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

and  his  portrait  by  Hales,  so  admirably  reproduced  in 
Mynors  Bright's  edition,  is  a  confirmation  of  the  Diary. 
Hales,  it  would  appear,  had  known  his  business;  and 
though  he  put  his  sitter  to  a  deal  of  trouble,  almost 
breaking  his  neck  "to  have  the  portrait  full  of  sha- 
dows," and  draping  him  in  an  Indian  gown  hired  ex- 
pressly for  the  purpose,  he  was  preoccupied  about  no 
merely  picturesque  effects,  but  to  portray  the  essence  of 
the  man.  Whether  we  read  the  picture  by  the  Diary  or 
the  Diary  by  the  picture,  we  shall  at  least  agree  that 
Hales  was  among  the  number  of  those  who  can  "sur- 
prise the  manners  in  the  face."  Here  we  have  a  mouth 
pouting,  moist  with  desires ;  eyes  greedy,  protuberant, 
and  yet  apt  for  weeping  too ;  a  nose  great  alike  in  char- 
acter and  dimensions;  and  altogether  a  most  fleshly, 
melting  countenance.  The  face  is  attractive  by  its 
promise  of  reciprocity.  I  have  used  the  word  greedy, 
but  the  reader  must  not  suppose  that  he  can  change  it 
for  that  closely  kindred  one  of  hungry,  for  there  is  here 
no  aspiration,  no  waiting  for  better  things,  but  an  ani- 
mal joy  in  all  that  comes.  It  could  never  be  the  face  of 
an  artist;  it  is  the  face  of  a  vtveur —  kindly,  pleased  and 
pleasing,  protected  from  excess  and  upheld  in  content- 
ment by  the  shifting  versatility  of  his  desires.  For  a 
single  desire  is  more  rightly  to  be  called  a  lust;  but 
there  is  health  in  a  variety,  where  one  may  balance  and 
control  another. 

The  whole  world,  town  or  country,  was  to  Pepys  a 
garden  of  Armida.  Wherever  he  went,  his  steps  were 
winged  with  the  most  eager  expectation ;  whatever  he 
did,  it  was  done  with  the  most  lively  pleasure.  An 
insatiable  curiosity  in  all  the  shows  of  the  world  and 

254 


SAMUEL   PEPYS 

all  the  secrets  of  knowledge,  filled  him  brimful  of  the 
longing  to  travel,  and  supported  him  in  the  toils  of 
study.  Rome  was  the  dream  of  his  life ;  he  was  never 
happier  than  when  he  read  or  talked  of  the  Eternal  City. 
When  he  was  in  Holland,  he  was  "with  child"  to  see 
any  strange  thing.  Meeting  some  friends  and  singing 
with  them  in  a  palace  near  the  Hague,  his  pen  fails  him 
to  express  his  passion  of  delight,  "the  more  so  because 
in  a  heaven  of  pleasure  and  in  a  strange  country."  He 
must  go  to  see  all  famous  executions.  He  must  needs 
visit  the  body  of  a  murdered  man,  defaced  "with  a 
broad  wound,"  he  says,  ''that  makes  my  hand  now 
shake  to  write  of  it."  He  learned  to  dance,  and  was 
"like  to  make  a  dancer."  He  learned  to  sing,  and 
walked  about  Gray's  Inn  Fields  "humming  to  myself 
(which  is  now  my  constant  practice)  the  trillo."  He 
learned  to  play  the  lute,  the  flute,  the  flageolet,  and  the 
theorbo,  and  it  was  not  the  fault  of  his  intention  if  he 
did  not  learn  the  harpsichord  or  the  spinet.  He  learned 
to  compose  songs,  and  burned  to  give  forth  "a  scheme 
and  theory  of  music  not  yet  ever  made  in  the  world." 
When  he  heard  "a  fellow  whistle  like  a  bird  exceeding 
well,"  he  promised  to  return  another  day  and  give  an 
angel  for  a  lesson  in  the  art.  Once,  he  writes,  "  I  took 
the  Bezan  back  with  me,  and  with  a  brave  gale  and 
tide  reached  up  that  night  to  the  Hope,  taking  great 
pleasure  in  learning  the  seamen's  manner  of  singing 
when  they  sound  the  depths."  If  he  found  himself 
rusty  in  his  Latin  grammar,  he  must  fall  to  it  like  a 
schoolboy.  He  was  a  member  of  Harrington's  Club  till 
its  dissolution,  and  of  the  Royal  Society  before  it  had 
received  the  name.     Boyle's  Hydrostatics  was  "of  in- 

255 


FAMILIAR   STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

finite  delight"  to  him,  walking  in  Barnes  Elms.  We 
find  him  comparing  Bible  concordances,  a  captious 
judge  of  sermons,  deep  in  Descartes  and  Aristotle.  We 
find  him,  in  a  single  year,  studying  timber  and  the 
measurement  of  timber;  tar  and  oil,  hemp,  and  the 
process  of  preparing  cordage;  mathematics  and  account- 
ing; the  hull  and  the  rigging  of  ships  from  a  model; 
and  "looking  and  improving  himself  of  the  (naval) 
stores  with" — hark  to  the  fellow! — "great  delight." 
His  familiar  spirit  of  delight  was  not  the  same  with 
Shelley's ;  but  how  true  it  was  to  him  through  life  !  He 
is  only  copying  something,  and  behold,  he  "  takes  great 
pleasure  to  rule  the  lines,  and  have  the  capital  words 
wrote  with  red  ink;"  he  has  only  had  his  coal-cellar 
emptied  and  cleaned,  and  behold,  "it  do  please  him 
exceedingly."  A  hog's  harslett  is  "a  piece  of  meat  he 
loves."  He  cannot  ride  home  in  my  Lord  Sandwich's 
coach,  but  he  must  exclaim,  with  breathless  gusto,  "  his 
noble,  rich  coach."  When  he  is  bound  for  a  supper 
party,  he  anticipates  a  "glut  of  pleasure."  When  he 
has  a  new  watch,  "to  see  my  childishness,"  says  he,  "  I 
could  not  forbear  carrying  it  in  my  hand  and  seeing 
what  o'clock  it  was  an  hundred  times."  To  go  to 
Vauxhall,  he  says,  and  "to  hear  the  nightingales  and 
other  birds,  hear  fiddles,  and  there  a  harp  and  here  a 
Jew's  trump,  and  here  laughing,  and  there  fine  people 
walking,  is  mighty  divertising."  And  the  nightingales, 
I  take  it,  were  particularly  dear  to  him ;  and  it  was  again 
"with  great  pleasure"  that  he  paused  to  hear  them 
as  he  walked  to  Woolwich,  while  the  fog  was  rising 
and  the  April  sun  broke  through. 
He  must  always  be  doing  something  agreeable,  and, 
256 


SAMUEL   PEPYS 

by  preference,  two  agreeable  things  at  once.  In  his 
house  he  had  a  box  of  carpenter's  tools,  two  dogs,  an 
eagle,  a  canary,  and  a  blackbird  that  whistled  tunes, 
lest,  even  in  that  full  life,  he  should  chance  upon  an 
empty  moment.  If  he  had  to  wait  for  a  dish  of  poached 
eggs,  he  must  put  in  the  time  by  playing  on  the  flageo- 
let; if  a  sermon  were  dull,  he  must  read  in  the  book  of 
Tobit  or  divert  his  mind  with  sly  advances  on  the  near- 
est women.  When  he  walked,  it  must  be  with  a  book 
in  his  pocket  to  beguile  the  way  in  case  the  nightin- 
gales were  silent;  and  even  along  the  streets  of  London, 
with  so  many  pretty  faces  to  be  spied  for  and  dignita- 
ries to  be  saluted,  his  trail  was  marked  by  little  debts 
*'for  wine,  pictures,  etc.,"  the  true  headmark  of  a  life 
intolerant  of  any  joyless  passage.  He  had  a  kind  of 
idealism  in  pleasure ;  like  the  princess  in  the  fairy  story, 
he  was  conscious  of  a  rose-leaf  out  of  place.  Dearly  as 
he  loved  to  talk,  he  could  not  enjoy  nor  shine  in  a  con- 
versation when  he  thought  himself  unsuitably  dressed. 
Dearly  as  he  loved  eating,  he  **knew  not  how  to  eat 
alone;"  pleasure  for  him  must  heighten  pleasure; 
and  the  eye  and  ear  must  be  flattered  like  the  palate  ere 
he  avow  himself  content.  He  had  no  zest  in  a  good 
dinner  when  it  fell  to  be  eaten  "in  a  bad  street  and  in 
a  periwig-maker's  house ; "  and  a  collation  was  spoiled 
for  him  by  indifferent  music.  His  body  was  indefati- 
gable, doing  him  yeoman's  service  in  this  breathless  chase 
of  pleasures.  On  April  ii,  1662,  he  mentions  that  he 
went  to  bed  "  weary,  which  I  seldom  am  ;  *'  and  already 
over  thirty,  he  would  sit  up  all  night  cheerfully  to  see  a 
comet.  But  it  is  never  pleasure  that  exhausts  the 
pleasure -seeker;  for  in  that  career,  as  in  all  others,  it  is 

257 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

failure  that  kills.  The  man  who  enjoys  so  wholly  and 
bears  so  impatiently  the  slightest  widowhood  from  joy, 
is  just  the  man  to  lose  a  night's  rest  over  some  paltry 
question  of  his  right  to  fiddle  on  the  leads,  or  to  be 
*'  vexed  to  the  blood  "  by  a  solecism  in  his  wife's  attire; 
and  we  find  in  consequence  that  he  was  always  peevish 
when  he  was  hungry,  and  that  his  head  **  aked  mightily" 
after  a  dispute.  But  nothing  could  divert  him  from  his 
aim  in  life ;  his  remedy  in  care  was  the  same  as  his  delight 
in  prosperity ;  it  was  with  pleasure,  and  with  pleasure 
only,  that  he  sought  to  drive  out  sorrow ;  and,  whether 
he  was  jealous  of  his  wife  or  skulking  from  a  bailiff,  he 
would  equally  take  refuge  in  the  theatre.  There,  if  the 
house  be  full  and  the  company  noble,  if  the  songs  be 
tunable,  the  actors  perfect,  and  the  play  diverting,  this 
odd  hero  of  the  secret  Diary,  this  private  self-adorer, 
will  speedily  be  healed  of  his  distresses. 

Equally  pleased  with  a  watch,  a  coach,  a  piece  of 
meat,  a  tune  upon  the  fiddle,  or  a  fact  in  hydrostatics, 
Pepys  was  pleased  yet  more  by  the  beauty,  the  worth, 
the  mirth,  or  the  mere  scenic  attitude  in  life  of  his  fellow- 
creatures.  He  shows  himself  throughout  a  sterling 
humanist.  Indeed,  he  who  loves  himself,  not  in  idle 
vanity,  but  with  a  plenitude  of  knowledge,  is  the  best 
equipped  of  all  to  love  his  neighbours.  And  perhaps  it 
is  in  this  sense  that  charity  may  be  most  properly  said 
to  begin  at  home.  It  does  not  matter  what  quality  a 
person  has :  Pepys  can  appreciate  and  love  him  for  it. 
He  *  *  fills  his  eyes  "  with  the  beauty  of  Lady  Castlemaine ; 
indeed,  he  may  be  said  to  dote  upon  the  thought  of  her 
for  years ;  if  a  woman  be  good-looking  and  not  painted, 
he  will  walk  miles  to  have  another  sight  of  her;  and 

358 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

even  when  a  lady  by  a  mischance  spat  upon  his  clothes, 
he  was  immediately  consoled  when  he  had  observed 
that  she  was  pretty.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  he  is  de- 
lighted to  see  Mrs.  Pett  upon  her  knees,  and  speaks  thus 
of  his  Aunt  James:  "a  poor,  religious,  well-meaning, 
good  soul,  talking  of  nothing  but  God  Almighty,  and 
that  with  so  much  innocence  that  mightily  pleased  me." 
He  is  taken  with  Pen's  merriment  and  loose  songs,  but 
not  less  taken  with  the  sterling  worth  of  Coventry.  He 
is  jolly  with  a  drunken  sailor,  but  listens  with  interest 
and  patience,  as  he  rides  the  Essex  roads,  to  the  story  of 
a  Quaker's  spiritual  trials  and  convictions.  He  lends  a 
critical  ear  to  the  discourse  of  kings  and  royal  dukes. 
He  spends  an  evening  at  Vauxhall  with  "Killigrew  and 
young  Newport —  loose  company, "  says  he,  ' '  but  worth 
a  man's  being  in  for  once,  to  know  the  nature  of  it,  and 
their  manner  of  talk  and  lives."  And  when  a  rag-boy 
lights  him  home,  he  examines  him  about  his  business 
and  other  ways  of  livelihood  for  destitute  children.  This 
is  almost  half-way  to  the  beginning  of  philanthropy; 
had  it  only  been  the  fashion,  as  it  is  at  present,  Pepys 
had  perhaps  been  a  man  famous  for  good  deeds.  And 
it  is  through  this  quality  that  he  rises,  at  times,  su- 
perior to  his  surprising  egotism ;  his  interest  in  the  love 
affairs  of  others  is,  indeed,  impersonal ;  he  is  filled  with 
concern  for  my  Lady  Castlemaine,  whom  he  only  knows 
by  sight,  shares  in  her  very  jealousies,  joys  with  her  in 
her  successes;  and  it  is  not  untrue,  however  strange  it 
seems  in  his  abrupt  presentment,  that  he  loved  his  maid 
Jane  because  she  was  in  love  with  his  man  Tom. 

Let  us  hear  him,  for  once,  at  length :  ''So  the  women 
and  W.  Hewer  and  I  walked  upon  the  Downes,  where 

2%9 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

a  flock  of  sheep  was;  and  the  most  pleasant  and  inno- 
cent sight  that  ever  I  saw  in  my  life.  We  found  a  shep- 
herd and  his  little  boy  reading,  far  from  any  houses  or 
sight  of  people,  the  Bible  to  him ;  so  I  made  the  boy 
read  to  me,  which  he  did  with  the  forced  tone  that 
children  do  usually  read,  that  was  mighty  pretty ;  and 
then  I  did  give  him  something,  and  went  to  the  father, 
and  talked  with  him.  He  did  content  himself  mightily 
in  my  liking  his  boy's  reading,  and  did  bless  God  for 
him,  the  most  like  one  of  the  old  patriarchs  that  ever  I 
saw  in  my  life,  and  it  brought  those  thoughts  of  the  old 
age  of  the  world  in  my  mind  for  two  or  three  days  after. 
We  took  notice  of  his  woolen  knit  stockings  of  two 
colors  mixed,  and  of  his  shoes  shod  with  iron,  both  at 
the  toe  and  heels,  and  with  great  nails  in  the  soles  of 
his  feet,  which  was  mighty  pretty;  and  taking  notice 
of  them,  'Why,'  says  the  poor  man,  'the  downes,  you 
see,  are  full  of  stones,  and  we  are  faine  to  shoe  ourselves 
thus;  and  these,'  says  he,  'will  make  the  stones  fly  till 
they  ring  before  me.'  I  did  give  the  poor  man  some- 
thing, for  which  he  was  mighty  thankful,  and  I  tried  to 
cast  stones  with  his  home  crooke.  He  values  his  dog 
mightily,  that  would  turn  a  sheep  any  way  which  he 
would  have  him,  when  he  goes  to  fold  them ;  told  me 
there  was  about  eighteen  score  sheep  in  his  flock,  and 
that  he  hath  four  shillings  a  week  the  year  round  for 
keeping  of  them ;  and  Mrs.  Turner,  in  the  common  fields 
here,  did  gather  one  of  the  prettiest  nosegays  that  ever 
I  saw  in  my  life." 

And  so  the  story  rambles  on  to  the  end  of  that  day's 
pleasuring;  with  cups  of  milk,  and  glowworms,  and 
people  walking  at  sundown  with  their  wives  and  chil- 

260 


SAMUEL   PEPYS 

dren,  and  all  the  way  home  Pepys  still  dreaming  "of 
the  old  age  of  the  world  "  and  the  early  innocence  of 
man.  This  was  how  he  walked  through  life,  his  eyes 
and  ears  wide  open,  and  his  hand,  you  will  observe,  not 
shut;  and  thus  he  observed  the  lives,  the  speech,  and 
the  manners  of  his  fellow-men,  with  prose  fidelity  of 
detail  and  yet  a  lingering  glamour  of  romance. 

It  was  ''two  or  three  days  after"  that  he  extended 
this  passage  in  the  pages  of  his  Journal,  and  the  style 
has  thus  the  benefit  of  some  reflection.  It  is  generally 
supposed  that,  as  a  writer,  Pepys  must  rank  at  the  bot- 
tom of  the  scale  of  merit.  But  a  style  which  is  indefat- 
igably  lively,  telling,  and  picturesque  through  six  large 
volumes  of  everyday  experience,  which  deals  with  the 
whole  matter  of  a  life,  and  yet  is  rarely  wearisome, 
which  condescends  to  the  most  fastidious  particulars, 
and  yet  sweeps  all  away  in  the  forthright  current  of  the 
narrative, —  such  a  style  may  be  ungrammatical,  it  may 
be  inelegant,  it  may  be  one  tissue  of  mistakes,  but  it  can 
never  be  devoid  of  merit.  The  first  and  the  true  func- 
tion of  the  writer  has  been  thoroughly  performed  through- 
out; and  though  the  manner  of  his  utterance  may  be 
childishly  awkward,  the  matter  has  been  transformed 
and  assimilated  by  his  unfeigned  interest  and  delight. 
The  gusto  of  the  man  speaks  out  fierily  after  all  these 
years.  For  the  difference  between  Pepys  and  Shelley,  to 
return  to  that  half  whimsical  approximation,  is  one  of 
quality  but  not  one  of  degree;  in  his  sphere,  Pepys  felt 
as  keenly,  and  his  is  the  true  prose  of  poetry  —  prose 
because  the  spirit  of  the  man  was  narrow  and  earthly, 
but  poetry  because  he  was  delightedly  alive.  Hence, 
in  such  a  passage  as  this  about  the  Epsom  shepherd,  the 

261 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

result  upon  the  reader's  mind  is  entire  conviction  and 
unmingled  pleasure.  So,  you  feel,  the  thing  fell  out, 
not  otherwise;  and  you  would  no  more  change  it  than 
you  would  change  a  sublimity  of  Shakespeare's,  a 
homely  touch  of  Bunyan's,  or  a  favoured  reminiscence 
of  your  own. 

There  never  was  a  man  nearer  being  an  artist,  who 
yet  was  not  one.  The  tang  was  in  the  family ;  while 
he  was  writing  the  Journal  for  our  enjoyment  in  his 
comely  house  in  Navy  Gardens,  no  fewer  than  two  of 
his  cousins  were  tramping  the  fens,  kit  under  arm,  to 
make  music  to  the  country  girls.  But  he  himself,  though 
he  could  play  so  many  instruments  and  pass  judgment 
in  so  many  fields  of  art,  remained  an  amateur.  It  is  not 
given  to  any  one  so  keenly  to  enjoy,  without  some 
greater  power  to  understand.  That  he  did  not  like 
Shakespeare  as  an  artist  for  the  stage  may  be  a  fault, 
but  it  is  not  without  either  parallel  or  excuse.  He  cer- 
tainly admired  him  as  a  poet;  he  was  the  first  beyond 
mere  actors  on  the  rolls  of  that  innumerable  army  who 
have  got  "  To  be  or  not  to  be  "  by  heart.  Nor  was  he 
content  with  that;  it  haunted  his  mind;  he  quoted  it  to 
himself  in  the  pages  of  the  Diary,  and,  rushing  in  where 
angels  fear  to  tread,  he  set  it  to  music.  Nothing,  in- 
deed, is  more  notable  than  the  heroic  quality  of  the 
verses  that  our  little  sensualist  in  a  periwig  chose  out  to 
marry  with  his  own  mortal  strains.  Some  gust  from 
brave  Elizabethan  times  must  have  warmed  his  spirit, 
as  he  sat  tuning  his  sublime  theorbo.  "  To  be  or  not  to 
be.  Whether  'tis  nobler  "  —  "  Beauty  retire,  thou  dost 
my  pity  move" —  "It  is  decreed,  nor  shall  thy  fate,  O 
Rome;"  —  open   and  dignified  in  the  sound,  various 

262 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

and  majestic  in  the  sentiment,  it  was  no  inapt,  as  it  was 
certainly  no  timid,  spirit  that  selected  such  a  range  of 
themes.  Of  **  Gaze  not  on  Swans,"  I  know  no  more 
than  these  four  words ;  yet  that  also  seems  to  promise 
well.  It  was,  however,  on  a  probable  suspicion,  the 
work  of  his  master,  Mr.  Berkenshaw  —  as  the  drawings 
that  figure  at  the  breaking  up  of  a  young  ladies'  semi- 
nary are  the  work  of  the  professor  attached  to  the  estab- 
lishment. Mr.  Berkenshaw  was  not  altogether  happy 
in  his  pupil.  The  amateur  cannot  usually  rise  into  the 
artist,  some  leaven  of  the  world  still  clogging  him ;  and 
we  find  Pepys  behaving  like  a  pickthank  to  the  man 
who  taught  him  composition.  In  relation  to  the  stage, 
which  he  so  warmly  loved  and  understood,  he  was 
not  only  more  hearty,  but  more  generous  to  others. 
Thus  he  encounters  Colonel  Reames,  "3.  man,"  says 
he,  *' who  understands  and  loves  a  play  as  well  as  I, 
and  I  love  him  for  it."  And  again,  when  he  and  his 
wife  had  seen  a  most  ridiculous  insipid  piece,  "Glad 
we  were,"  he  writes,  ''that  Betterton  had  no  part  in 
it."  It  is  by  such  a  zeal  and  loyalty  to  those  who  labour 
for  his  delight  that  the  amateur  grows  worthy  of  the 
artist.  And  it  should  be  kept  in  mind  that,  not  only 
in  art,  but  in  morals,  Pepys  rejoiced  to  recognise  his 
betters.  There  was  not  one  speck  of  envy  in  the  whole 
human-hearted  egotist. 

RESPECTABILITY 

When  writers  inveigh  against  respectability,  in  the 
present  degraded  meaning  of  the  word,  they  are  usu- 
ally suspected  of  a  taste  for  clay  pipes  and  beer  cellars ; 

26? 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

and  their  performances  are  thought  to  hail  from  the 
Owl's  Nest  of  the  comedy.  They  have  something  more, 
however,  in  their  eye  than  the  dulness  of  a  round  mil- 
lion dinner  parties  that  sit  down  yearly  in  old  England. 
For  to  do  anything  because  others  do  it,  and  not  be- 
cause the  thing  is  good,  or  kind,  or  honest  in  its  own 
right,  is  to  resign  all  moral  control  and  captaincy  upon 
yourself,  and  go  post-haste  to  the  devil  with  the  greater 
number.  We  smile  over  the  ascendency  of  priests ;  but 
I  had  rather  follow  a  priest  than  what  they  call  the  lead- 
ers of  society.  No  life  can  better  than  that  of  Pepys  il- 
lustrate the  dangers  of  this  respectable  theory  of  living. 
For  what  can  be  more  untoward  than  the  occurrence, 
at  a  critical  period  and  while  the  habits  are  still  pliable, 
of  such  a  sweeping  transformation  as  the  return  of 
Charles  the  Second  }  Round  went  the  whole  fleet  of 
England  on  the  other  tack;  and  while  a  few  tall  pintas, 
Milton  or  Pen,  still  sailed  a  lonely  course  by  the  stars 
and  their  own  private  compass,  the  cock-boat,  Pepys, 
must  go  about  with  the  majority  among  "the  stupid 
starers  and  the  loud  huzzas." 

The  respectable  are  not  led  so  much  by  any  desire  of 
applause  as  by  a  positive  need  for  countenance.  The 
weaker  and  the  tamer  the  man,  the  more  will,  he  re- 
quire this  support;  and  any  positive  quality  relieves 
him,  by  just  so  much,  of  this  dependence.  In  a  dozen 
ways,  Pepys  was  quite  strong  enough  to  please  him- 
self without  regard  for  others ;  but  his  positive  qualities 
were  not  coextensive  with  the  field  of  conduct;  and  in 
many  parts  of  life  he  followed,  with  gleeful  precision, 
in  the  footprints  of  the  contemporary  Mrs.  Grundy.  In 
morals,  particularly,  he  lived  by  the  countenance  ot 

264 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

Others ;  felt  a  slight  from  another  more  keenly  than  a 
meanness  in  himself;  and  then  first  repented  when  he 
was  found  out.  You  could  talk  of  religion  or  morality 
to  such  a  man ;  and  by  the  artist  side  of  him,  by  his 
lively  sympathy  and  apprehension,  he  could  rise,  as  it 
were  dramatically,  to  the  significance  of  what  you  said. 
All  that  matter  in  religion  which  has  been  nicknamed 
other-worldliness  was  strictly  in  his  gamut;  but  a  rule 
of  life  that  should  make  a  man  rudely  virtuous,  follow- 
ing right  in  good  report  and  ill  report,  was  foolishness 
and  a  stumbling-block  to  Pepys.  He  was  much  thrown 
across  the  Friends;  and  nothing  can  be  more  instruc- 
tive than  his  attitude  toward  these  most  interesting 
people  of  that  age.  I  have  mentioned  how  he  con- 
versed with  one  as  he  rode;  when  he  saw  some 
brought  from  a  meeting  under  arrest,  ''  I  would  to 
God,"  said  he,  ''they  would  either  conform,  or  be 
more  wise  and  not  be  catched ; "  and  to  a  Quaker  in  his 
own  office  he  extended  a  timid  though  effectual  pro- 
tection. Meanwhile  there  was  growing  up  next  door 
to  him  that  beautiful  nature,  William  Pen.  It  is  odd 
that  Pepys  condemned  him  for  a  fop;  odd,  though 
natural  enough  when  you  see  Pen's  portrait,  that  Pepys 
was  jealous  of  him  with  his  wife.  But  the  cream  of 
the  story  is  when  Pen  publishes  his  Sandy  Foundation 
Shaken,  and  Pepys  has  it  read  aloud  by  his  wife.  *'I 
find  it,"  he  says,  *'so  well  writ  as,  I  think,  it  is  too 
good  for  him  ever  to  have  writ  it;  and  it  is  a  serious 
sort  of  book,  and  not  fit  for  everybody  to  read."  Noth- 
ing is  more  galling  to  the  merely  respectable  than  to  be 
brought  in  contact  with  religious  ardour.  Pepys  had 
his  own  foundation,  sandy  enough,  but  dear  to  him 

265 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

from  practical  considerations,  and  he  would  read  the 
book  with  true  uneasiness  of  spirit;  for  conceive  the 
blow  if,  by  some  plaguy  accident,  this  Pen  were  to 
convert  him !  It  was  a  different  kind  of  doctrine  that 
he  judged  profitable  for  himself  and  others.  "  A  good 
sermon  of  Mr.  GifTord's  at  our  church,  upon  *  Seek  ye 
first  the  kingdom  of  heaven.'  A  very  excellent  and 
persuasive,  good  and  moral  sermon.  He  showed,  like 
a  wise  man,  that  righteousness  is  a  surer  moral  way  of 
being  rich  than  sin  and  villainy."  It  is  thus  that  re- 
spectable people  desire  to  have  their  Greathearts  address 
them,  telling,  in  mild  accents,  how  you  may  make  the 
best  of  both  worlds,  and  be  a  moral  hero  without 
courage,  kindness,  or  troublesome  reflection ;  and  thus 
the  Gospel,  cleared  of  Eastern  metaphor,  becomes  a 
manual  of  worldly  prudence,  and  a  handy-book  for 
Pepys  and  the  successful  merchant. 

The  respectability  of  Pepys  was  deeply  grained.  He 
has  no  idea  of  truth  except  for  the  Diary.  He  has  no 
care  that  a  thing  shall  be,  if  it  but  appear;  gives  out  that 
he  has  inherited  a  good  estate,  when  he  has  seemingly 
got  nothing  but  a  lawsuit ;  and  is  pleased  to  be  thought 
liberal  when  he  knows  he  has  been  rrfean.  He  is  con- 
scientiously ostentatious.  I  say  conscientiously,  with 
reason.  He  could  never  have  been  taken  for  a  fop,  like 
Pen,  but  arrayed  himself  in  a  manner  nicely  suitable  to 
his  position.  For  long  he  hesitated  to  assume  the  fa- 
mous periwig;  for  a  public  man  should  travel  gravely 
with  the  fashions,  not  foppishly  before,  nor  dowdily  be- 
hind, the  central  movement  of  his  age.  For  long  he 
durst  not  keep  a  carriage;  that,  in  his  circumstances, 
would  have  been  improper;  but  a  time  comes,  with  the 

266 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

growth  of  his  fortune,  when  the  impropriety  has  shifted 
to  the  other  side,  and  he  is  "ashamed  to  be  seen  in  a 
hackney."  Pepys  talked  about  being  **a  Quaker  or 
some  very  melancholy  thing; "  for  my  part,  I  can  ima- 
gine nothing  so  melancholy,  because  nothing  half  so 
silly,  as  to  be  concerned  about  such  problems.  But  so 
respectability  and  the  duties  of  society  haunt  and  burden 
their  poor  devotees;  and  what  seems  at  first  the  very 
primrose  path  of  life,  proves  difficult  and  thorny  like  the 
rest.  And  the  time  comes  to  Pepys,  as  to  all  the  merely 
respectable,  when  he  must  not  only  order  his  pleasures, 
but  even  clip  his  virtuous  movements,  to  the  public  pat- 
ter of  the  age.  There  was  some  juggling  among  officials 
to  avoid  direct  taxation ;  and  Pepys,  with  a  noble  im- 
pulse, growing  ashamed  of  this  dishonesty,  designed  to 
charge  himself  with  ;£iooo;  but  finding  none  to  set  him 
an  example,  **  nobody  of  our  ablest  merchants  "  with  this 
moderate  liking  for  clean  hands,  he  judged  it  **not  de- 
cent;" he  feared  it  would  '*be  thought  vain  glory;" 
and,  rather  than  appear  singular,  cheerfully  remained  a 
thief.  One  able  merchant's  countenance,  and  Pepys 
had  dared  to  do  an  honest  act !  Had  he  found  one  brave 
spirit,  properly  recognised  by  society,  he  might  have 
gone  far  as  a  disciple.  Mrs.  Turner,  it  is  true,  can  fill 
him  full  of  sordid  scandal,  and  make  him  believe,  against 
the  testimony  of  his  senses,  that  Pen's  venison  pasty 
stank  like  the  devil;  but,  on  the  other  hand.  Sir  William 
Coventry  can  raise  him  by  a  word  into  another  being. 
Pepys,  when  he  is  with  Coventry,  talks  in  the  vein  of 
an  old  Roman.  What  does  he  care  for  office  or  emolu- 
ment ?  * '  Thank  God,  I  have  enough  of  my  own, "  says 
he,  '*to  buy  me  a  good  book  and  a  good  fiddle,  and  I 

267 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN  AND   BOOKS 

have  a  good  wife."  And  again,  we  find  this  pair  pro- 
jecting an  old  age  when  an  ungrateful  country  shall  have 
dismissed  them  from  the  field  of  public  service;  Coven- 
try living  retired  in  a  fine  house,  and  Pepys  dropping  in, 
"it  may  be,  to  read  a  chapter  of  Seneca." 

Under  this  influence,  the  only  good  one  in  his  life, 
Pepys  continued  zealous  and,  for  the  period,  pure  in  his 
employment.  He  would  not  be  "bribed  to  be  unjust," 
he  says,  though  he  was  "  not  so  squeamish  as  to  refuse 
a  present  after,"  suppose  the  king  to  have  received  no 
wrong.  His  new  arrangement  for  the  victualling  of 
Tangier,  he  tells  us  with  honest  complacency,  will  save 
the  king  a  thousand  and  gain  Pepys  three  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  —  a  statement  which  exactly  fixes  the 
degree  of  the  age's  enlightenment.  But  for  his  industry 
and  capacity  no  praise  can  be  too  high.  It  was  an  un- 
ending struggle  for  the  man  to  stick  to  his  business  in 
such  a  garden  of  Armida  as  he  found  this  life;  and  the 
story  of  his  oaths,  so  often  broken,  so  courageously  re- 
newed, is  worthy  rather  of  admiration  than  the  contempt 
it  has  received. 

Elsewhere,  and  beyond  the  sphere  of  Coventry's  in- 
fluence, we  find  him  losing  scruples  and  daily  comply- 
ing further  with  the  age.  When  he  began  the  Journal, 
he  was  a  trifle  prim  and  puritanic ;  merry  enough,  to  be 
sure,  over  his  private  cups,  and  still  remembering  Mag- 
dalen ale  and  his  acquaintance  with  Mrs.  Ainsworth  of 
Cambridge.  But  youth  is  a  hot  season  with  all ;  when 
a  man  smells  April  and  May  he  is  apt  at  times  to  stum- 
ble; and  in  spite  of  a  disordered  practice,  Pepys's  theory, 
the  better  things  that  he  approved  and  followed  after, 
we  may  even  say  were  strict.     Where  there  was  **  tag 

268 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

rag,  and  bobtail,  dancing,  singing,  and  drinking,"  he  felt 
*' ashamed,  and  went  away;"  and  when  he  slept  in 
church,  he  prayed  God  forgive  him.  In  but  a  little 
while  we  find  him  with  some  ladies  keeping  each  other 
awake  ''from  spite,"  as  though  not  to  sleep  in  church 
were  an  obvious  hardship ;  and  yet  later  he  calmly  passes 
the  time  of  service,  looking  about  him,  with  a  perspec- 
tive glass,  on  all  the  pretty  women.  His  favourite 
ejaculation,  **Lord!"  occurs  but  once  that  I  have  ob- 
served in  1660,  never  in  '61,  twice  in  '62,  and  at  least 
five  times  in  '6};  after  which  the  ''  Lords  "  may  be  said 
to  pullulate  like  herrings,  with  here  and  there  a  solitary 
"damned,"  as  it  were  a  whale  among  the  shoal.  He 
and  his  wife,  once  filled  with  dudgeon  by  some  innocent 
freedoms  at  a  marriage,  are  soon  content  to  go  pleasur- 
ing with  my  Lord  Brouncker's  mistress,  who  was  not 
even,  by  his  own  account,  the  most  discreet  of  mis- 
tresses. Tag,  rag,  and  bobtail,  dancing,  singing,  and 
drinking,  become  his  natural  element;  actors  and  ac- 
tresses and  drunken,  roaring  courtiers  are  to  be  found 
in  his  society ;  until  the  man  grew  so  involved  with  Sat- 
urnalian  manners  and  companions  that  he  was  shot  al- 
most unconsciously  into  the  grand  domestic  crash  of 
1668. 

That  was  the  legitimate  issue  and  punishment  of  years 
of  staggering  walk  and  conversation.  The  man  who  has 
smoked  his  pipe  for  half  a  century  in  a  powder  magazine 
finds  himself  at  last  the  author  and  the  victim  of  a  hid- 
eous disaster.  So  with  our  pleasant-minded  Pepys  and 
his  peccadilloes.  All  of  a  sudden,  as  he  still  trips  dex- 
terously enough  among  the  dangers  of  a  double-faced 
career,  thinking  no  great  evil,  humming  to  himself  the 

269 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

trillo,  Fate  takes  the  further  conduct  of  that  matter  from 
his  hands,  and  brings  him  face  to  face  with  the  conse- 
quences of  his  acts.  For  a  man  still,  after  so  many 
years,  the  lover,  although  not  the  constant  lover,  of  his 
wife,  —  for  a  man,  besides,  who  was  so  greatly  careful 
of  appearances,  —  the  revelation  of  his  infidelities  was  a 
crushing  blow.  The  tears  that  he  shed,  the  indignities 
that  he  endured,  are  not  to  be  measured.  A  vulgar 
woman,  and  now  justly  incensed,  Mrs.  Pepys  spared 
him  no  detail  of  suffering.  She  was  violent,  threatening 
him  with  the  tongs;  she  was  careless  of  his  honour, 
driving  him  to  insult  the  mistress  whom  she  had  driven 
him  to  betray  and  to  discard ;  worst  of  all,  she  was  hope- 
lessly inconsequent,  in  word  and  thought  and  deed,  now 
lulling  him  with  reconciliations,  and  anon  flaming  forth 
again  with  the  original  anger.  Pepys  had  not  used  his 
wife  well;  he  had  wearied  her  with  jealousies,  even 
while  himself  unfaithful;  he  had  grudged  her  clothes 
and  pleasures,  while  lavishing  both  upon  himself;  he 
had  abused  her  in  words;  he  had  bent  his  fist  at  her  in 
anger;  he  had  once  blacked  her  eye;  and  it  is  one  of  the 
oddest  particulars  in  that  odd  Diary  of  his,  that,  while 
the  injury  is  referred  to  once  in  passing,  there  is  no  hint 
as  to  the  occasion  or  the  manner  of  the  blow.  But  now, 
when  he  is  in  the  wrong,  nothing  can  exceed  the  long- 
suffering  affection  of  this  impatient  husband.  While  he 
was  still  sinning  and  still  undiscovered,  he  seems  not  to 
have  known  a  touch  of  penitence  stronger  than  what 
might  lead  him  to  take  his  wife  to  the  theatre,  or  for  an 
airing,  or  to  give  her  a  new  dress,  by  way  of  compen- 
sation. Once  found  out,  however,  and  he  seems  to 
himself  to  have  lost  all  claim  to  decent  usage.     It  is  per- 

370 


SAMUEL  PEPYS 

haps  the  strongest  instance  of  his  externality.  His  wife 
may  do  what  she  pleases,  and  though  he  may  groan,  it 
will  never  occur  to  him  to  blame  her;  he  has  no  weapon 
left  but  tears  and  the  most  abject  submission.  We 
should  perhaps  have  respected  him  more  had  he  not 
given  way  so  utterly  —  above  all,  had  he  refused  to 
write,  under  his  wife's  dictation,  an  insulting  letter  to 
his  unhappy  fellow-culprit.  Miss  Willet;  but  somehow 
I  believe  we  like  him  better  as  he  was. 

The  death  of  his  wife,  following  so  shortly  after,  must 
have  stamped  the  impression  of  this  episode  upon  his 
mind.  For  the  remaining  years  of  his  long  life  we  have 
no  Diary  to  help  us,  and  we  have  seen  already  how  lit- 
tle stress  is  to  be  laid  upon  the  tenor  of  his  correspond- 
ence; but  what  with  the  recollection  of  the  catastrophe 
of  his  married  life,  what  with  the  natural  influence  of 
his  advancing  years  and  reputation,  it  seems  not  unlikely 
that  the  period  of  gallantry  was  at  an  end  for  Pepys ; 
and  it  is  beyond  a  doubt  that  he  sat  down  at  last  to  an 
honoured  and  agreeable  old  age  among  his  books  and 
music,  the  correspondent  of  Sir  Isaac  Newton,  and,  in 
one  instance  at  least,  the  poetical  counsellor  of  Dryden. 
Through  all  this  period,  that  Diary  which  contained  the 
secret  memoirs  of  his  life,  with  all  its  inconsistencies  and 
escapades,  had  been  religiously  preserved;  nor,  when 
he  came  to  die,  does  he  appear  to  have  provided  for  its 
destruction.  So  we  may  conceive  him  faithful  to  the 
end  to  all  his  dear  and  early  memories;  still  mindful  of 
Mrs.  Hely  in  the  woods  at  Epsom;  still  lighting  at  Is- 
lington for  a  cup  of  kindness  to  the  dead ;  still,  if  he  heard 
again  that  air  that  once  so  much  disturbed  him,  thrilling 
at  the  recollection  of  the  love  that  bound  him  to  his  wife. 

271 


JOHN  KNOX  AND  HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

I. — THE  CONTROVERSY  ABOUT  FEMALE  RULE 

WHEN  first  the  idea  became  widely  spread  among 
men  that  the  Word  of  God,  instead  of  being- 
truly  the  foundation  of  all  existing  institutions,  was 
rather  a  stone  which  the  builders  had  rejected,  it  was 
but  natural  that  the  consequent  havoc  among  received 
opinions  should  be  accompanied  by  the  generation  of 
many  new  and  lively  hopes  for  the  future.  Somewhat 
as  in  the  early  days  of  the  French  Revolution,  men  must 
have  looked  for  an  immediate  and  universal  improve- 
ment in  their  condition.  Christianity,  up  to  that  time, 
had  been  somewhat  of  a  failure  politically.  The  reason 
was  now  obvious,  the  capital  flaw  was  detected,  the 
sickness  of  the  body  politic  traced  at  last  to  its  efficient 
cause.  It  was  only  necessary  to  put  the  Bible  thor- 
oughly into  practice,  to  set  themselves  strenuously  to  re- 
alise in  life  the  Holy  Commonwealth,  and  all  abuses  and 
iniquities  would  surely  pass  away.  Thus,  in  a  pageant 
played  at  Geneva  in  the  year  1 523,  the  world  was  rep- 
resented as  a  sick  man  at  the  end  of  his  wits  for  help, 
to  whom  his  doctor  recommends  Lutheran  specifics.^ 

The  Reformers  themselves  had  set  their  affections  in 
a  different  world,  and  professed  to  look  for  the  finished 

1  Gaberel's  Eglise  de  Geneve,  i.  88. 
272 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

result  of  their  endeavours  on  the  other  side  of  death. 
They  took  no  interest  in  politics  as  such ;  they  even  con- 
demned political  action  as  Antichristian :  notably,  Luther 
in  the  case  of  the  Peasants'  War.  And  yet,  as  the  purely 
religious  question  was  inseparably  complicated  with  po- 
litical difficulties,  and  they  had  to  make  opposition,  from 
day  to  day,  against  principalities  and  powers,  they  were 
led,  one  after  another,  and  again  and  again,  to  leave  the 
sphere  which  was  more  strictly  their  own,  and  meddle, 
for  good  and  evil,  with  the  affairs  of  State.  Not  much 
was  to  be  expected  from  interference  in  such  a  spirit. 
Whenever  a  minister  found  himself  galled  or  hindered, 
he  would  be  inclined  to  suppose  some  contravention  of 
the  Bible.  Whenever  Christian  liberty  was  restrained 
(and  Christian  liberty  for  each  individual  would  be  about 
coextensive  with  what  he  wished  to  do),  it  was  obvious 
that  the  State  was  Antichrtstian.  The  great  thing,  and 
the  one  thing,  was  to  push  the  Gospel  and  the  Reform- 
ers' own  interpretation  of  it.  Whatever  helped  was 
good;  whatever  hindered  was  evil;  and  if  this  simple 
classification  proved  inapplicable  over  the  whole  field, 
it  was  no  business  of  his  to  stop  and  reconcile  incon- 
gruities. He  had  more  pressing  concerns  on  hand;  he 
had  to  save  souls ;  he  had  to  be  about  his  Father's  busi- 
ness. This  short-sighted  view  resulted  in  a  doctrine 
that  was  actually  Jesuitical  in  application.  They  had  no 
serious  ideas  upon  politics,  and  they  were  ready,  nay, 
they  seemed  almost  bound,  to  adopt  and  support  which- 
ever ensured  for  the  moment  the  greatest  benefit  to  the 
souls  of  their  fellow-men.  They  were  dishonest  in  all 
sincerity.    Thus  Labitte,  in  the  introduction  to  a  book* 

1  La  Democratie  che^  les  Predicateurs  de  la  Ligue. 
273 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND    BOOKS 

in  which  he  exposes  the  hypocritical  democracy  of  the 
Catholics  under  the  League,  steps  aside  for  a  moment  to 
stigmatize  the  hypocritical  democracy  of  the  Protestants. 
And  nowhere  was  this  expediency  in  political  questions 
more  apparent  than  about  the  question  of  female  sover- 
eignty. So  much  was  this  the  case  that  one  James 
Thomasius,  of  Leipsic,  wrote  a  little  paper  i  about  the 
religious  partialities  of  those  who  took  part  in  the  con- 
troversy, in  which  some  of  these  learned  disputants  cut 
a  very  sorry  figure. 

Now  Knox  has  been  from  the  first  a  man  well  hated ; 
and  it  is  somewhat  characteristic  of  his  luck  that  he  fig- 
ures here  in  the  very  forefront  of  the  list  of  partial  scribes 
who  trimmed  their  doctrine  with  the  wind  in  all  good 
conscience,  and  were  political  weathercocks  out  of  con- 
viction. Not  only  has  Thomasius  mentioned  him,  but 
Bayle  has  taken  the  hint  from  Thomasius,  and  dedicated 
a  long  note  to  the  matter  at  the  end  of  his  article  on  the 
Scotch  Reformer.  This  is  a  little  less  than  fair.  If  any  one 
among  the  evangelists  of  that  period  showed  more  seri- 
ous political  sense  than  another,  it  was  assuredly  Knox ; 
and  even  in  this  very  matter  of  female  rule,  although  I 
do  not  suppose  any  one  nowadays  will  feel  inclined  to 
endorse  his  sentiments,  I  confess  1  can  make  great  al- 
lowance for  his  conduct.  The  controversy,  besides,  has 
an  interest  of  its  own,  in  view  of  later  controversies. 

John  Knox,  from  1 556  to  1 559,  was  resident  in  Geneva, 
as  minister,  jointly  with  Goodman,  of  a  little  church  of 
English  refugees.  He  and  his  congregation  were  ban- 
ished from  England  by  one  woman,  Mary  Tudor,  and 

1  Htstoria  affectuum  se  immiscentium  controversice  de  gjtncecocra- 
tia.     It  is  in  his  collected  prefaces,  Leipsic,  1683. 

274 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

proscribed  in  Scotland  by  another,  the  Regent  Mary  of 
Guise.  The  coincidence  was  tempting :  here  were  many 
abuses  centring  about  one  abuse;  here  was  Christ's 
Gospel  persecuted  in  the  two  kingdoms  by  one  anoma- 
lous power.  He  had  not  far  to  go  to  find  the  idea  that 
female  government  was  anomalous.  It  was  an  age,  in- 
deed, in  which  women,  capable  and  incapable,  played 
a  conspicuous  part  upon  the  stage  of  European  history ; 
and  yet  their  rule,  whatever  may  have  been  the  opinion 
of  here  and  there  a  wise  man  or  enthusiast,  was  re- 
garded as  an  anomaly  by  the  great  bulk  of  their  con- 
temporaries. It  was  defended  as  an  anomaly.  It,  and 
all  that  accompanied  and  sanctioned  it,  was  set  aside  as 
a  single  exception;  and  no  one  thought  of  reasoning 
down  from  queens  and  extending  their  privileges  to  or- 
dinary women.  Great  ladies,  as  we  know,  had  the 
privilege  of  entering  into  monasteries  and  cloisters, 
otherwise  forbidden  to  their  sex.  As  with  one  thing, 
so  with  another.  Thus,  Margaret  of  Navarre  wrote  books 
with  great  acclamation,  and  no  one,  seemingly,  saw  fit 
to  call  her  conduct  in  question ;  but  Mademoiselle  de 
Gournay,  Montaigne's  adopted  daughter,  was  in  a  con- 
troversy with  the  world  as  to  whether  a  woman  might 
be  an  author  without  incongruity.  Thus,  too,  we  have 
Theodore  Agrippa  d'Aubigne  writing  to  his  daughters 
about  the  learned  women  of  his  century,  and  cautioning 
them,  in  conclusion,  that  the  study  of  letters  was  un- 
suited  to  ladies  of  a  middling  station,  and  should  be  re- 
served for  princesses.^  And  once  more,  if  we  desire  to 
see  the  same  principle  carried  to  ludicrous  extreme,  we 
shall  find  that  Reverend  Father  in  God,  the  Abbot  of 
1  CEuvres  de  d'Aubigne,  i.  449. 
275 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Brantdme,  claiming,  on  the  authority  of  some  lord  of 
his  acquaintance,  a  privilege,  or  rather  a  duty,  of  free 
love  for  great  princesses,  and  carefully  excluding  other 
ladies  from  the  same  gallant  dispensation.^  One  sees 
the  spirit  in  which  these  immunities  were  granted;  and 
how  they  were  but  the  natural  consequence  of  that  awe 
for  courts  and  kings  that  made  the  last  writer  tell  us, 
with  simple  wonder,  how  Catherine  de  Medici  would 
"laugh  her  fill  just  like  another"  over  the  humours  of 
pantaloons  and  zanies.  And  such  servility  was,  of  all 
things,  what  would  touch  most  nearly  the  republican 
spirit  of  Knox.  It  was  not  difficult  for  him  to  set  aside 
this  weak  scruple  of  loyalty.  The  lantern  of  his  analysis 
did  not  always  shine  with  a  very  serviceable  light;  but 
he  had  the  virtue,  at  least,  to  carry  it  into  many  places  of 
fictitious  holiness,  and  was  not  abashed  by  the  tinsel 
divinity  that  hedged  kings  and  queens  from  his  contem- 
poraries. And  so  he  could  put  the  proposition  in  the 
form  already  mentioned :  there  was  Christ's  Gospel  per- 
secuted in  the  two  kingdoms  by  one  anomalous  power; 
plainly,  then,  the  "  regiment  of  women  "  was  Anti- 
christian.  Early  in  1558  he  communicated  this  discovery 
to  the  world,  by  publishing  at  Geneva  his  notorious 
book  —  The  First  Blast  of  the  Trumpet  against  the  Mon- 
strous Regiment  of  IVomen.^ 

As  a  whole,  it  is  a  dull  performance;  but  the  preface, 
as  is  usual  with  Knox,  is  both  interesting  and  morally 
fine.  Knox  was  not  one  of  those  who  are  humble  in 
the  hour  of  triumph;  he  was  aggressive  even  when 
things  were  at  their  worst.     He  had  a  grim  reliance  in 

1  Dames  Illustres,  pp.  358-60. 

2  Works  of  John  Knox,  iv.  349. 

336 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

himself,  or  rather  in  his  mission ;  if  he  were  not  sure 
that  he  was  a  great  man,  he  was  at  least  sure  that  he 
was  one  set  apart  to  do  great  things.  And  he  judged 
simply  that  whatever  passed  in  his  mind,  whatever 
moved  him  to  flee  from  persecution  instead  of  constantly 
facing  it  out,  or,  as  here,  to  publish  and  withhold  his 
name  from  the  title-page  of  a  critical  work,  would  not 
fail  to  be  of  interest,  perhaps  of  benefit,  to  the  world. 
There  may  be  something  more  finely  sensitive  in  the 
modern  humour,  that  tends  more  and  more  to  withdraw 
a  man's  personality  from  the  lessons  he  inculcates  or  the 
cause  that  he  has  espoused ;  but  there  is  a  loss  herewith 
of  wholesome  responsibility ;  and  when  we  find  in  the 
works  of  Knox,  as  in  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  the  man  him- 
self standing  nakedly  forward,  courting  and  anticipating 
criticism,  putting  his  character,  as  it  were,  in  pledge  for 
the  sincerity  of  his  doctrine,  we  had  best  waive  the 
question  of  delicacy,  and  make  our  acknowledgments 
for  a  lesson  of  courage,  not  unnecessary  in  these  days 
of  anonymous  criticism,  and  much  light,  otherwise  un- 
attainable, on  the  spirit  in  which  great  movements  were 
initiated  and  carried  forward.  Knox's  personal  revela- 
tions are  always  interesting;  and,  in  the  case  of  the 
''First  Blast,"  as  I  have  said,  there  is  no  exception  to 
the  rule.  He  begins  by  stating  the  solemn  responsi- 
bility of  all  who  are  watchmen  over  God's  flock;  and 
all  are  watchmen  (he  goes  on  to  explain,  with  that  fine 
breadth  of  spirit  that  characterises  him  even  when,  as 
here,  he  shows  himself  most  narrow),  all  are  watchmen 
"whose  eyes  God  doth  open,  and  whose  conscience  he 
pricketh  to  admonish  the  ungodly."  And  with  the  full 
consciousness  of  this  great  duty  before  him,  he  sets  him- 

277 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

self  to  answer  the  scruples  of  timorous  or  worldly- 
minded  people.  How  can  a  man  repent,  he  asks,  unless 
the  nature  of  his  transgression  is  made  plain  to  him  ? 
*'  And  therefore  I  say,"  he  continues,  "  that  of  necessity 
it  is  that  this  monstriferous  empire  of  women  (which 
among  all  enormities  that  this  day  do  abound  upon  the 
face  of  the  whole  earth,  is  most  detestable  and  damna- 
ble) be  openly  and  plainly  declared  to  the  world,  to  the 
end  that  some  may  repent  and  be  saved."  To  those 
who  think  the  doctrine  useless,  because  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pected to  amend  those  princes  whom  it  would  dispos- 
sess if  once  accepted,  he  makes  answer  in  a  strain  that 
shows  him  at  his  greatest.  After  having  instanced  how 
the  rumour  of  Christ's  censures  found  its  way  to  Herod 
in  his  own  court,  ''even  so,"  he  continues,  "may  the 
sound  of  our  weak  trumpet,  by  the  support  of  some 
wind  (blow  it  from  the  south,  or  blow  it  from  the  north, 
it  is  of  no  matter),  come  to  the  ears  of  the  chief  offenders. 
But  whether  it  do  or  not,  yet  dare  we  not  cease  to  blow  as 
God  will  give  strength.  For  we  are  debtors  to  more  than 
to  princes,  to  wit,  to  the  great  multitude  of  our  brethren, 
of  whom,  no  doubt,  a  great  number  have  heretofore 
offended  by  error  and  ignorance." 

It  is  for  the  multitude,  then,  he  writes;  he  does  not 
greatly  hope  that  his  trumpet  will  be  audible  in  palaces, 
or  that  crowned  women  will  submissively  discrown 
themselves  at  his  appeal;  what  he  does  hope,  in  plain 
English,  is  to  encourage  and  justify  rebellion;  and  we 
shall  see,  before  we  have  done,  that  he  can  put  his  pur- 
pose into  words  as  roundly  as  I  can  put  it  for  him. 
This  he  sees  to  be  a  matter  of  much  hazard ;  he  is  not 
"  altogether  so  brutish  and  insensible,  but  that  he  has 

278 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

laid  his  account  what  the  finishing  of  the  work  may 
cost."  He  knows  that  he  will  find  many  adversaries, 
since  ''to  the  most  part  of  men,  lawful  and  godly  ap- 
peareth  whatsoever  antiquity  hath  received. "  He  looks 
for  opposition,  ''not  only  of  the  ignorant  multitude,  but 
of  the  wise,  politic,  and  quiet  spirits  of  the  earth."  He 
will  be  called  foolish,  curious,  despiteful,  and  a  sower 
of  sedition;  and  one  day,  perhaps,  for  all  he  is  now 
nameless,  he  may  be  attainted  of  treason.  Yet  he  has 
"determined  to  obey  God,  notwithstanding  that  the 
world  shall  rage  thereat."  Finally,  he  makes  some  ex- 
cuse for  the  anonymous  appearance  of  this  first  instal- 
ment :  it  is  his  purpose  thrice  to  blow  the  trumpet  in 
this  matter,  if  God  so  permit;  twice  he  intends  to  do  it 
without  name;  but  at  the  last  blast  to  take  the  odium 
upon  himself,  that  all  others  may  be  purged. 

Thus  he  ends  the  preface,  and  enters  upon  his  argu- 
ment with  a  secondary  title:  "  The  First  Blast  to  awake 
Women  degenerate."  We  are  in  the  land  of  assertion 
without  delay.  That  a  woman  should  bear  rule,  superior- 
ity, dominion  or  empire  over  any  realm,  nation,  or  city, 
he  tells  us,  is  repugnant  to  nature,  contumely  to  God, 
and  a  subversion  of  good  order.  Women  are  weak, 
frail,  impatient,  feeble,  and  foolish.  God  has  denied  to 
woman  wisdom  to  consider,  or  providence  to  foresee, 
what  is  profitable  to  a  commonwealth.  Women  have 
been  ever  lightly  esteemed ;  they  have  been  denied  the 
tutory  of  their  own  sons,  and  subjected  to  the  unques- 
tionable sway  of  their  husbands ;  and  surely  it  is  irra- 
tional to  give  the  greater  where  the  less  has  been 
withheld,  and  suffer  a  woman  to  reign  supreme  over  a 
great  kingdom  who  would  be  allowed  no  authority  by 

279 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

her  own  fireside.  He  appeals  to  the  Bible;  but  though 
he  makes  much  of  the  first  transgression  and  certain 
strong  texts  in  Genesis  and  Paul's  Epistles,  he  does  not 
appeal  with  entire  success.  The  cases  of  Deborah  and 
Huldah  can  be  brought  into  no  sort  of  harmony  with 
his  thesis.  Indeed,  I  may  say  that,  logically,  he  left  his 
bones  there;  and  that  it  is  but  the  phantom  of  an  argu- 
ment that  he  parades  thenceforward  to  the  end.  Well 
was  it  for  Knox  that  he  succeeded  no  better;  it  is  under 
this  very  ambiguity  about  Deborah  that  we  shall  find 
him  fain  to  creep  for  shelter  before  he  is  done  with  the 
regiment  of  women.  After  having  thus  exhausted 
Scripture,  and  formulated  its  teaching  in  the  somewhat 
blasphemous  maxim  that  the  man  is  placed  above  the 
woman,  even  as  God  above  the  angels,  he  goes  on 
triumphantly  to  adduce  the  testimonies  of  Tertullian, 
Augustine,  Ambrose,  Basil,  Chrysostom,  and  the  Pan- 
dects; and  having  gathered  this  little  cloud  of  witnesses 
about  him,  like  pursuivants  about  a  herald,  he  solemnly 
proclaims  all  reigning  women  to  be  traitoresses  and 
rebels  against  God;  discharges  all  men  thenceforward 
from  holding  any  office  under  such  monstrous  regiment, 
and  calls  upon  all  the  lieges  with  one  consent  to  ''  study 
to  repress  the  inordinate  pride  and  tyranny  "  of  queens. 
If  this  is  not  treasonable  teaching,  one  would  be  glad  to 
know  what  is;  and  yet,  as  if  he  feared  he  had  not  made 
the  case  plain  enough  against  himself,  he  goes  on  to 
deduce  the  startling  corollary  that  all  oaths  of  allegiance 
must  be  incontinently  broken.  If  it  was  sin  thus  to 
have  sworn  even  in  ignorance,  it  were  obstinate  sin  to 
continue  to  respect  them  after  fuller  knowledge.  Then 
comes  the  peroration,  in  which  he  cries  aloud  against 

aSo 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

the  cruelties  of  that  cursed  Jezebel  of  England  —  that 
horrible  monster  Jezebel  of  England;  and  after  having 
predicted  sudden  destruction  to  her  rule  and  to  the  rule 
of  all  crowned  women,  and  warned  all  men  that  if  they 
presume  to  defend  the  same  when  any  ''noble  heart" 
shall  be  raised  up  to  vindicate  the  liberty  of  his  country, 
they  shall  not  fail  to  perish  themselves  in  the  ruin,  he 
concludes  with  a  last  rhetorical  flourish :  '*  And  there- 
fore let  all  men  be  advertised,  for  the  Trumpet  hath 

ONCE  BLOWN." 

The  capitals  are  his  own.  In  writing,  he  probably 
felt  the  want  of  some  such  reverberation  of  the  pulpit 
under  strong  hands  as  he  was  wont  to  emphasise  his 
spoken  utterances  withal;  there  would  seem  to  him  a 
want  of  passion  in  the  orderly  lines  of  type;  and  I  sup- 
pose we  may  take  the  capitals  as  a  mere  substitute  for 
the  great  voice  with  which  he  would  have  given  it 
forth,  had  we  heard  it  from  his  own  lips.  Indeed,  as 
it  is,  in  this  little  strain  of  rhetoric  about  the  trumpet, 
this  current  allusion  to  the  fall  of  Jericho,  that  alone 
distinguishes  his  bitter  and  hasty  production,  he  was 
probably  right,  according  to  all  artistic  canon,  thus  to 
support  and  accentuate  in  conclusion  the  sustained 
metaphor  of  a  hostile  proclamation.  It  is  curious,  by 
the  way,  to  note  how  favourite  an  image  the  trumpet 
was  with  the  Reformer.  He  returns  to  it  again  and 
again ;  it  is  the  Alpha  and  Omega  of  his  rhetoric;  it  is  to 
him  what  a  ship  is  to  the  stage  sailor;  and  one  would 
almost  fancy  he  had  begun  the  world  as  a  trumpeter's 
apprentice.  The  partiality  is  surely  characteristic.  All 
his  life  long  he  was  blowing  summonses  before  various 
Jerichos,  some  of  which  fell  duly,  but  not  all.     Wher- 

281 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND  BOOKS 

ever  he  appears  in  history  his  speech  is  loud,  angry,  and 
hostile;  there  is  no  peace  in  his  life,  and  little  tender- 
ness; he  is  always  sounding  hopefully  to  the  front  for 
some  rough  enterprise.  And  as  his  voice  had  some- 
thing of  the  trumpet's  hardness,  it  had  something  also 
of  the  trumpet's  warlike  inspiration.  So  Randolph, 
possibly  fresh  from  the  sound  of  the  Reformer's  preach- 
ing, writes  of  him  to  Cecil: — "Where  your  honour 
exhorteth  us  to  stoutness,  I  assure  you  the  voice  of 
one  man  is  able,  in  an  hour,  to  put  more  life  in  us 
than  six  hundred  trumpets  continually  blustering  in 
our  ears."^ 

Thus  was  the  proclamation  made.  Nor  was  it  long 
in  wakening  all  the  echoes  of  Europe.  What  success 
might  have  attended  it,  had  the  question  decided  been 
a  purely  abstract  question,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  As  it 
was,  it  was  to  stand  or  fall,  not  by  logic,  but  by  polit- 
ical needs  and  sympathies.  Thus,  in  France,  his  doc- 
trine was  to  have  some  future,  because  Protestants  suf- 
fered there  under  the  feeble  and  treacherous  regency 
of  Catherine  de  Medici;  and  thus  it  was  to  have  no 
future  anywhere  else,  because  the  Protestant  interest 
was  bound  up  with  the  prosperity  of  Queen  Elizabeth. 
This  stumbling-block  lay  at  the  very  threshold  of  the 
matter;  and  Knox,  in  the  text  of  the  "First  Blast," 
had  set  everybody  the  wrong  example  and  gone  to  the 
ground  himself.  He  finds  occasion  to  regret  "the 
blood  of  innocent  Lady  Jane  Dudley."  But  Lady  Jane 
Dudley,  or  Lady  Jane  Grey,  as  we  call  her,  was  a  would- 
be  traitoress  and  rebel  against  God,  to  use  his  own  ex- 
pressions.    If,  therefore,  political  and  religious  sympa- 

1  M'Crie's  Life  of  Knox,  ii.  41. 
a83 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

thy  led  Knox  himself  into  so  grave  a  partiality,  what 
was  he  to  expect  from  his  disciples  ?  If  the  trumpet 
gave  so  ambiguous  a  sound,  who  could  heartily  prepare 
himself  for  the  battle  ?  The  question  whether  Lady 
Jane  Dudley  was  an  innocent  martyr,  or  a  traitoress 
against  God,  whose  inordinate  pride  and  tyranny  had 
been  effectually  repressed,  was  thus  left  altogether  in 
the  wind ;  and  it  was  not,  perhaps,  wonderful  if  many 
of  Knox's  readers  concluded  that  all  right  and  wrong  in 
the  matter  turned  upon  the  degree  of  the  sovereign's 
orthodoxy  and  possible  helpfulness  to  the  Reformation. 
He  should  have  been  the  more  careful  of  such  an  am- 
biguity of  meaning,  as  he  must  have  known  well  the 
lukewarm  indifference  and  dishonesty  of  his  fellow- 
reformers  in  political  matters.  He  had  already,  in  1556 
or  1557,  talked  the  matter  over  with  his  great  master, 
Calvin,  in  "  a  private  conversation ; "  and  the  interview^ 
must  have  been  truly  distasteful  to  both  parties.  Cal- 
vin, indeed,  went  a  far  way  with  him  in  theory,  and 
owned  that  the  "government  of  women  was  a  devia- 
tion from  the  original  and  proper  order  of  nature,  to  be 
ranked,  no  less  than  slavery,  among  the  punishments 
consequent  upon  the  fall  of  man."  But,  in  practice, 
their  two  roads  separated.  For  the  Man  of  Geneva 
saw  difficulties  in  the  way  of  the  Scripture  proof  in  the 
cases  of  Deborah  and  Huldah,  and  in  the  prophecy  of 
Isaiah  that  queens  should  be  the  nursing  mothers  of  the 
Church.  And  as  the  Bible  was  not  decisive,  he  thought 
the  subject  should  be  let  alone,  because  **by  custom 
and  public  consent  and  long  practice,  it  has  been  estab- 
lished that  realms  and  principalities  may  descend  to 

1  Described  by  Calvin  in  a  letter  to  Cecil,  Knox's  Works,  vol.  iv. 

283 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

females  by  hereditary  right,  and  it  would  not  be  lawful 
to  unsettle  governments  which  are  ordained  by  the 
peculiar  providence  of  God."  I  imagine  Knox's  ears 
must  have  burned  during  this  interview.  Think  of  him 
listening  dutifully  to  all  this  —  how  it  would  not  do  to 
meddle  with  anointed  kings  —  how  there  was  a  peculiar 
providence  in  these  great  affairs;  and  then  think  of  his 
own  peroration,  and  the  *'  noble  heart"  whom  he  looks 
for  "to  vindicate  the  liberty  of  his  country;"  or  his 
answer  to  Queen  Mary,  when  she  asked  him  who  he 
was,  to  interfere  in  the  affairs  of  Scotland: — ''Madam, 
a  subject  born  within  the  same!"  Indeed,  the  two 
doctors  who  differed  at  this  private  conversation  rep- 
resented, at  the  moment,  two  principles  of  enormous 
import  in  the  subsequent  history  of  Europe.  In  Calvin 
we  have  represented  that  passive  obedience,  that  tolera- 
tion of  injustice  and  absurdity,  that  holding  back  of  the 
hand  from  political  affairs  as  from  something  unclean, 
which  lost  France,  if  we  are  to  believe  M.  Michelet, 
for  the  Reformation ;  a  spirit  necessarily  fatal  in  the  long 
run  to  the  existence  of  any  sect  that  may  profess  it;  a 
suicidal  doctrine  that  survives  among  us  to  this  day  in 
narrow  views  of  personal  duty,  and  the  low  political 
morality  of  many  virtuous  men.  In  Knox,  on  the  other 
hand,  we  see  foreshadowed  the  whole  Puritan  Revolu- 
tion and  the  scaffold  of  Charles  I. 

There  is  little  doubt  in  my  mind  that  this  interview 
was  what  caused  Knox  to  print  his  book  without  a 
name.i    It  was  a  dangerous  thing  to  contradict  the  Man 

1  It  was  anonymously  published,  but  no  one  seems  to  have  been  in 
doubt  about  its  authorship;  he  might  as  well  have  set  his  name  to  it, 
for  all  the  good  he  got  by  holding  it  back. 

284 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

of  Geneva,  and  doubly  so,  surely,  when  one  had  had 
the  advantage  of  correction  from  him  in  a  private  con- 
versation ;  and  Knox  had  his  little  flock  of  English  refu- 
gees to  consider.  If  they  had  fallen  into  bad  odour  at 
Geneva,  where  else  was  there  left  to  flee  to  ?  It  was 
printed,  as  I  said,  in  1558;  and,  by  a  singular  mal-d- 
propos,  in  that  same  year  Mary  died,  and  Elizabeth  suc- 
ceeded to  the  throne  of  England.  And  just  as  the  ac- 
cession of  Catholic  Queen  Mary  had  condemned  female 
rule  in  the  eyes  of  Knox,  the  accession  of  Protestant 
Queen  Elizabeth  justified  it  in  the  eyes  of  his  colleagues. 
Female  rule  ceases  to  be  an  anomaly,  not  because  Eliza- 
beth can  "reply  to  eight  ambassadors  in  one  day  in 
their  different  languages,"  but  because  she  represents 
for  the  moment  the  political  future  of  the  Reformation. 
The  exiles  troop  back  to  England  with  songs  of  praise 
in  their  mouths.  The  bright  occidental  star,  of  which 
we  have  all  read  in  the  Preface  to  the  Bible,  has  risen 
over  the  darkness  of  Europe.  There  is  a  thrill  of  hope 
through  the  persecuted  Churches  of  the  Continent.  Cal- 
vin writes  to  Cecil,  washing  his  hands  of  Knox  and  his 
political  heresies.  The  sale  of  the  "  First  Blast "  is  pro- 
hibited in  Geneva;  and  along  with  it  the  bold  book  of 
Knox's  colleague,  Goodman  —  a  book  dear  to  Milton  — 
where  female  rule  was  briefly  characterised  as  a  **  mon- 
ster in  nature  and  disorder  among  men."^  Any  who 
may  ever  have  doubted,  or  been  for  a  moment  led  away 
by  Knox  or  Goodman,  or  their  own  wicked  imagina- 
tions, are  now  more  than  convinced.  They  have  seen 
the  occidental  star.  Aylmer,  with  his  eye  set  greedily 
on  a  possible  bishopric,  and  "the  better  to  obtain  the 

1  Knox's  Works,  iv.  558. 
28$ 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

favour  of  the  new  Queen,  "^  sharpens  his  pen  to  con- 
found Knox  by  logic.  What  need  ?  He  has  been  con- 
founded by  facts.  '*Thus  what  had  been  to  the  refu- 
gees of  Geneva  as  the  very  word  of  God,  no  sooner 
were  they  back  in  England  than,  behold  !  it  was  the 
work  of  the  devil."  2 

Now,  what  of  the  real  sentiments  of  these  loyal  sub- 
jects of  Elizabeth  ?  They  professed  a  holy  horror  for 
Knox's  position :  let  us  see  if  their  own  would  please 
a  modern  audience  any  better,  or  was,  in  substance, 
greatly  different. 

John  Aylmer,  afterward  Bishop  of  London,  published 
an  answer  to  Knox,  under  the  title  of  An  Harbour  for 
Faithful  and  true  Subjects  against  the  late  Blown  Blast, 
concerning  the  government  of  Women.^  And  certainly 
he  was  a  thought  more  acute,  a  thought  less  precipitate 
and  simple,  than  his  adversary.  He  is  not  to  be  led 
away  by  such  captious  terms  as  natural  and  unnatu- 
ral. It  is  obvious  to  him  that  a  woman's  disability  to 
rule  is  not  natural  in  the  same  sense  in  which  it  is  nat- 
ural for  a  stone  to  fall  or  fire  to  burn.  He  is  doubtful, 
on  the  whole,  whether  this  disability  be  natural  at  all ; 
nay,  when  he  is  laying  it  down  that  a  woman  should 
not  be  a  priest,  he  shows  some  elementary  conception 
of  what  many  of  us  now  hold  to  be  the  truth  of  the 
matter.  "The  bringing-up  of  women,"  he  says,  'Ms 
commonly  such  "  that  they  cannot  have  the  necessary 

1  Strype's  Aylmer,  p.  16. 

'  It  may  interest  the  reader  to  know  that  these  (so  says  Thomasius) 
are  the  *'  ipsissima  verba  Schlusselburgii." 

3  I  am  indebted  for  a  sight  of  this  book  to  the  kindness  of  Mr.  David 
Laing,  the  editor  of  Knox's  works. 

386 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

qualifications,  "for  they  are  not  brought  up  in  learning 
in  schools,  nor  trained  in  disputation."  And  even  so, 
he  can  ask,  *' Are  there  not  in  England  women,  think 
you,  that  for  learning  and  wisdom  could  tell  their  house- 
hold and  neighbours  as  good  a  tale  as  any  Sir  John 
there?"  For  all  that,  his  advocacy  is  weak.  If  wo- 
man's rule  is  not  unnatural  in  a  sense  preclusive  of  its 
very  existence,  it  is  neither  so  convenient  nor  so  profit- 
able as  the  government  of  men.  He  holds  England  to 
be  specially  suitable  for  the  government  of  women,  be- 
cause there  the  governor  is  more  limited  and  restrained 
by  the  other  members  of  the  constitution  than  in  other 
places ;  and  this  argument  has  kept  his  book  from  being 
altogether  forgotten.  It  is  only  in  hereditary  monar- 
chies that  he  will  offer  any  defence  of  the  anomaly.  "  If 
rulers  were  to  be  chosen  by  lot  or  suffrage,  he  would 
not  that  any  women  should  stand  in  the  election,  but 
men  only."  The  law  of  succession  of  crowns  was  a 
law  to  him,  in  the  same  sense  as  the  law  of  evolution  is 
a  law  to  Mr.  Herbert  Spencer;  and  the  one  and  the  other 
counsels  his  readers,  in  a  spirit  suggestively  alike,  not  to 
kick  against  the  pricks  or  seek  to  be  more  wise  than  He 
who  made  them.^  If  God  has  put  a  female  child  into 
the  direct  line  of  inheritance,  it  is  God's  affair.  His 
strength  will  be  perfected  in  her  weakness.  He  makes 
the  Creator  address  the  objectors  in  this  not  very  flatter- 
ing vein: —  "  I,  that  could  make  Daniel,  a  sucking  babe, 
to  judge  better  than  the  wisest  lawyers ;  a  brute  beast 
to  reprehend  the  folly  of  a  prophet;  and  poor  fishers  to 
confound  the  great  clerks  of  the  world  —  cannot  I  make 
a  woman  to  be  a  good  ruler  over  you  ?  "    This  is  the 

1  Social  Statics,  p.  64,  etc. 
287 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

last  word  of  his  reasoning.  Although  he  was  not  alto- 
gether  without  Puritanic  leaven,  shown  particularly  in 
what  he  says  of  the  incomes  of  Bishops,  yet  it  was  rather 
loyalty  to  the  old  order  of  things  than  any  generous  be- 
lief in  the  capacity  of  women,  that  raised  up  for  them 
this  clerical  champion.  His  courtly  spirit  contrasts  sin- 
gularly with  the  rude,  bracing  republicanism  of  Knox. 
"Thy  knee  shall  bow,"  he  says,  **  thy  cap  shall  off,  thy 
tongue  shall  speak  reverently  of  thy  sovereign."  For 
himself,  his  tongue  is  even  more  than  reverent.  Nothing 
can  stay  the  issue  of  his  eloquent  adulation.  Again  and 
again,  "the  remembrance  of  Elizabeth's  virtues"  car- 
ries him  away ;  and  he  has  to  hark  back  again  to  find 
the  scent  of  his  argument.  He  is  repressing  his  vehe- 
ment adoration  throughout,  until,  when  the  end  comes, 
and  he  feels  his  business  at  an  end,  he  can  indulge  him- 
self to  his  heart's  content  in  indiscriminate  laudation  of 
his  royal  mistress.  It  is  humorous  to  think  that  this 
illustrious  lady,  whom  he  here  praises,  among  many 
other  excellences,  for  the  simplicity  of  her  attire  and  the 
"marvellous  meekness  of  her  stomach,"  threatened 
him,  years  after,  in  no  very  meek  terms,  for  a  sermon 
against  female  vanity  in  dress,  which  she  held  as  a  re- 
flection on  herself.^ 

Whatever  was  wanting  here  in  respect  for  women 
generally,  there  was  no  want  of  respect  for  the  Queen ; 
and  one  cannot  very  greatly  wonder  if  these  devoted 
servants  looked  askance,  not  upon  Knox  only,  but  on 
his  little  flock,  as  they  came  back  to  England  tainted 
with  disloyal  doctrine.  For  them,  as  for  him,  the  occi- 
dental star  rose  somewhat  red  and  angry.     As  for  poor 

1  Hallam's  Const.  Hist,  of  England,  i.  225,  note  ". 
288 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

Knox,  his  position  was  the  saddest  of  all.  For  the 
juncture  seemed  to  him  of  the  highest  importance;  it 
was  the  nick  of  time,  the  flood-water  of  opportunity. 
Not  only  was  there  an  opening  for  him  in  Scotland,  a 
smouldering  brand  of  civil  liberty  and  religious  en- 
thusiasm which  it  should  be  for  him  to  kindle  into  flame 
with  his  powerful  breath ;  but  he  had  his  eye  seemingly 
on  an  object  of  even  higher  worth.  For  now,  when  re- 
ligious sympathy  ran  so  high  that  it  could  be  set  against 
national  aversion,  he  wished  to  begin  the  fusion  to- 
gether of  England  and  Scotland,  and  to  begin  it  at  the 
sore  place.  If  once  the  open  wound  were  closed  at 
the  Border,  the  work  would  be  half  done.  Ministers 
placed  at  Berwick  and  such  places  might  seek  their  con- 
verts equally  on  either  side  of  the  march ;  old  enemies 
would  sit  together  to  hear  the  gospel  of  peace,  and  for- 
get the  inherited  jealousies  of  many  generations  in  the 
enthusiasm  of  a  common  faith ;  or  —  let  us  say  better  — 
a  common  heresy.  For  people  are  not  most  conscious 
of  brotherhood  when  they  continue  languidly  together 
in  one  creed,  but  when,  with  some  doubt,  with  some 
danger  perhaps,  and  certainly  not  without  some  re- 
luctance, they  violently  break  with  the  tradition  of  the 
past,  and  go  forth  from,  the  sanctuary  of  their  fathers 
to  worship  under  the  bare  heaven.  A  new  creed, 
like  a  new  country,  is  an  unhomely  place  of  sojourn ; 
but  it  makes  men  lean  on  one  another  and  join  hands. 
It  was  on  this  that  Knox  relied  to  begin  the  union 
of  the  English  and  the  Scotch.  And  he  had,  per- 
haps, better  means  of  judging  than  any  even  of  his  con- 
temporaries. He  knew  the  temper  of  both  nations ;  and 
already  during  his  two  years'  chaplaincy  at  Berwick,  he 

289 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

had  seen  his  scheme  put  to  the  proof.  But  whether 
practicable  or  not,  the  proposal  does  him  much  honour. 
That  he  should  thus  have  sought  to  make  a  love-match 
of  it  between  the  two  peoples,  and  tried  to  win  their  in- 
clination toward  a  union  instead  of  simply  transferring 
them,  like  so  many  sheep,  by  a  marriage,  or  testament, 
or  private  treaty,  is  thoroughly  characteristic  of  what  is 
best  in  the  man.  Nor  was  this  all.  He  had,  besides, 
to  assure  himself  of  English  support,  secret  or  avowed, 
for  the  reformation  party  in  Scotland ;  a  delicate  affair, 
trenching  upon  treason.  And  so  he  had  plenty  to  say 
to  Cecil,  plenty  that  he  did  not  care  to  "  commit  to  pa- 
per neither  yet  to  the  knowledge  of  many."  But  his 
miserable  publication  had  shut  the  doors  of  England  in 
his  face.  Summoned  to  Edinburgh  by  the  confederate 
lords,  he  waited  at  Dieppe,  anxiously  praying  for  leave 
to  journey  through  England.  The  most  dispiriting  ti- 
dings reach  him.  His  messengers,  coming  from  so  ob- 
noxious a  quarter,  narrowly  escape  imprisonment.  His 
old  congregation  are  coldly  received,  and  even  begin 
to  look  back  again  to  their  place  of  exile  with  regret. 
'*My  First  Blast,"  he  writes  ruefully,  **has  blown  from 
me  all  my  friends  of  England."  *  And  then  he  adds,  with 
a  snarl,  "The  Second  Blast,  I  fear,  shall  sound  somewhat 
more  sharp,  except  men  be  more  moderate  than  I  hear 
they  are."i  But  the  threat  is  empty;  there  will  never 
be  a  second  blast  —  he  has  had  enough  of  that  trumpet. 
Nay,  he  begins  to  feel  uneasily  that,  unless  he  is  to  be 
rendered  useless  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  unless  he  is  to 
lose  his  right  arm  and  go  about  his  great  work  maimed 
and  impotent,  he  must  find  some  way  of  making  his 

1  Knox  to  Mrs.  Locke,  6th  April,  1559.    Works,  vi.  14, 
290 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

peace  with  England  and  the  indignant  Queen.  The 
letter  just  quoted  was  written  on  the  6th  of  April,  1559; 
and  on  the  loth,  after  he  had  cooled  his  heels  for  four 
days  more  about  the  streets  of  Dieppe,  he  gave  in  alto- 
gether, and  writes  a  letter  of  capitulation  to  Cecil.  In 
this  letter  ^  which  he  kept  back  until  the  22d,  still 
hoping  that  things  would  come  right  of  themselves,  he 
censures  the  great  secretary  for  having  "followed  the 
world  in  the  way  of  perdition,"  characterizes  him  as 
"  worthy  of  hell,"  and  threatens  him,  if  he  be  not  found 
simple,  sincere,  and  fervent  in  the  cause  of  Christ's 
gospel,  that  he  shall  "  taste  of  the  same  cup  that  politic 
heads  have  drunken  in  before  him."  This  is  all,  I  take 
it,  out  of  respect  for  the  Reformer's  own  position ;  if  he 
is  going  to  be  humiliated,  let  others  be  humiliated  first; 
like  a  child  who  will  not  take  his  medicine  until  he  has 
made  his  nurse  and  his  mother  drink  of  it  before  him. 
"  But  I  have,  say  you,  written  a  treasonable  book  against 
the  regiment  and  empire  of  women.  .  .  .  The 
writing  of  that  book  I  will  not  deny ;  but  to  prove  it 
treasonable  I  think  it  shall  be  hard.  .  .  .  It  is  hinted 
that  my  book  shall  be  written  against.  If  so  be,  sir,  I 
greatly  doubt  they  shall  rather  hurt  nor  (than)  mend  the 
matter."  And  here  come  the  terms  of  capitulation ;  for 
he  does  not  surrender  unconditionally,  even  in  this  sore 
strait:  '*  And  yet  if  any,"  he  goes  on,  ''think  me  enemy 
to  the  person,  or  yet  to  the  regiment,  of  her  whom 
God  hath  now  promoted,  they  are  utterly  deceived  in 
me,  for  the  miraculous  work  of  God,  comforting  His 
afflicted  by  means  of  an  infirm  vessel,  I  do  acknowledge, 
and  the  power  of  His  most  potent  hand  I  will  obey.  More 
1  Knox  to  Sir  William  Cecil,  loth  April,  1559.     Works,  ii.  16,  or  vi.  15, 

291 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

plainly  to  speak,  if  Queen  Elizabeth  shall  confess,  that 
the  extraordinary  dispensation  of  God's  great  mercy 
maketh  that  lawful  unto  her  which  both  nature  and 
God's  law  do  deny  to  all  women,  then  shall  none  in 
England  be  more  willing  to  maintain  her  lawful  author- 
ity than  I  shall  be.  But  if  (God's  wondrous  work  set 
aside)  she  ground  (as  God  forbid)  the  justness  of  her 
title  upon  consuetude,  laws,  or  ordinances  of  men, 
then  "  —  Then  Knox  will  denounce  her?  Not  so;  he 
is  more  politic  nowadays  —  then,  he  "greatly  fears" 
that  her  ingratitude  to  God  will  not  go  long  without 
punishment. 

His  letter  to  Elizabeth,  written  some  few  months  later, 
was  a  mere  amplification  of  the  sentences  quoted  above. 
She  must  base  her  title  entirely  upon  the  extraordinary 
providence  of  God;  but  ifshe  does  this,  "  if  thus,  in  God's 
presence,  she  humbles  herself,  so  will  he  with  tongue 
and  pen  justify  her  authority,  as  the  Holy  Ghost  hath 
justified  the  same  in  Deborah,  that  blessed  mother  in 
Israel."  ^  And  so,  you  see,  his  consistency  is  preserved ; 
he  is  merely  applying  the  doctrine  of  the  **  First  Blast." 
The  argument  goes  thus:  The  regiment  of  women  is, 
as  before  noted  in  our  work,  repugnant  to  nature,  con- 
tumely to  God,  and  a  subversion  of  good  order.  It  has 
nevertheless  pleased  God  to  raise  up,  as  exceptions  to 
this  law,  first  Deborah,  and  afterward  Elizabeth  Tudor 
—  whose  regiment  we  shall  proceed  to  celebrate. 

There  is  no  evidence  as  to  how  the  Reformer's  ex- 
planations were  received,  and  indeed  it  is  most  probable 
that  the  letter  was  never  shown  to  Elizabeth  at  all.  For 
it  was  sent  under  cover  of  another  to  Cecil,  and  as  it  was 

1  Knox  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  July  20th,  1559.     Works,  vi.  47,  or  ii.  26. 

292 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS   TO   WOMEN 

not  of  a  very  courtly  conception  throughout,  and  was,  of 
all  things,  what  would  most  excite  the  Queen's  uneasy 
jealousy  about  her  title,  it  is  like  enough  that  the  secre- 
tary exercised  his  discretion  (he  had  Knox's  leave  in 
this  case,  and  did  not  always  wait  for  that,  it  is  reputed) 
to  put  the  letter  harmlessly  away  beside  other  valueless 
or  unpresentable  State  Papers.  I  wonder  very  much  if 
he  did  the  same  with  another,^  written  two  years  later, 
-after  Mary  had  come  into  Scotland,  in  which  Knox  al- 
most seeks  to  make  Elizabeth  an  accomplice  with  him 
in  the  matter  of  the  **  First  Blast."  The  Queen  of  Scot- 
land is  going  to  have  that  work  refuted,  he  tells  her; 
and  "though it  were  but  foolishness  in  him  to  prescribe 
unto  her  Majesty  what  is  to  be  done,"  he  would  yet  re- 
mind her  that  Mary  is  neither  so  much  alarmed  about 
her  own  security,  nor  so  generously  interested  in  Eliza- 
beth's, "that  she  would  take  such  pains,  unless  her 
-crafty  counsel  in  so  doing  shot  at  a  further  mark. ' ' 
There  is  something  really  ingenious  in  this  letter;  it 
showed  Knox  in  the  double  capacity  of  the  author  of  the 
"First  Blast"  and  the  faithful  friend  of  Elizabeth;  and 
he  combines  them  there  so  naturally,  that  one  would 
.scarcely  imagine  the  two  to  be  incongruous. 

Twenty  days  later  he  was  defending  his  intemperate 
publication  to  another  queen  —  his  own  queen,  Mary 
Stuart.  This  was  on  the  first  of  those  three  interviews 
which  he  has  preserved  for  us  with  so  much  dramatic 
vigour  in  the  picturesque  pages  of  his  history.  After 
he  had  avowed  the  authorship  in  his  usual  haughty  style, 
Mary  asked:  "You  think,  then,  that  1  have  no  just  au- 
thority?"    The  question  was  evaded.     "Please  your 

^  Knox  to  Queen  Elizabeth,  August  6th,  1561.     Works,  vi.  126. 

293 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

Majesty,"  he  answered,  ''that  learned  men  in  all  ages 
have  had  their  judgments  free,  and  most  commonly  dis- 
agreeing from  the  common  judgment  of  the  world ;  such 
also  have  they  published  by  pen  and  tongue;  and  yet 
notwithstanding  they  themselves  have  lived  in  the  com- 
mon society  with  others,  and  have  borne  patiently  with 
the  errors  and  imperfections  which  they  could  not 
amend."  Thus  did  "  Plato  the  philosopher:"  thus  will 
do  John  Knox.  *M  have  communicated  my  judgment 
to  the  world :  if  the  realm  finds  no  inconvenience  from 
the  regiment  of  a  woman,  that  which  they  approve, 
shall  I  not  further  disallow  than  within  my  own  breast; 
but  shall  be  as  well  content  to  live  under  your  Grace,  as 
Paul  was  to  live  under  Nero.  And  my  hope  is,  that  so 
long  as  ye  defile  not  your  hands  with  the  blood  of  the 
saints  of  God,  neither  I  nor  my  book  shall  hurt  either 
you  or  your  authority. "  All  this  is  admirable  in  wisdom 
and  moderation,  and,  except  that  he  might  have  hit  upon 
a  comparison  less  offensive  than  that  with  Paul  and  Nero, 
hardly  to  be  bettered.  Having  said  thus  much,  he  feels 
he  needs  say  no  more;  and  so,  when  he  is  further 
pressed,  he  closes  that  part  of  the  discussion  with  an  as- 
tonishing sally.  If  he  has  been  content  to  let  this  mat- 
ter sleep,  he  would  recommend  her  Grace  to  follow  his 
example  with  thankfulness  of  heart;  it  is  grimly  to  be 
understood  which  of  them  has  most  to  fear  if  the  ques- 
tion should  be  reawakened.  So  the  talk  wandered  to 
other  subjects.  Only,  when  the  Queen  was  summoned 
at  last  to  dinner  (  "for  it  was  afternoon  ")  Knox  made 
his  salutation  in  this  form  of  words:  "I  pray  God, 
Madam,  that  you  may  be  as  much  blessed  within  the 
Commonwealth  of  Scotland,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of  God, 

ap4 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

as  ever  Deborah  was  in  the  Commonwealth  of  Israel." ' 
Deborah  again. 

But  he  was  not  yet  done  with  the  echoes  of  his  own 
"First  Blast."  In  1571,  when  he  was  already  near  his 
end,  the  old  controversy  was  taken  up  in  one  of  a  series 
of  anonymous  libels  against  the  Reformer  affixed,  Sun- 
day after  Sunday,  to  the  church  door.  The  dilemma 
was  fairly  enough  stated.  Either  his  doctrine  is  false, 
in  which  case  he  is  a  "false  doctor"  and  seditious;  or, 
if  it  be  true,  why  does  he  "avow  and  approve  the  con- 
trare,  I  mean  that  regim.ent  in  the  Queen  of  England's 
person;  which  he  avoweth  and  approveth,  not  only 
praying  for  the  maintenance  of  her  estate,  but  also  pro- 
curing her  aid  and  support  against  his  own  native  coun- 
try ?  "  Knox  answered  the  libel,  as  his  wont  was,  next 
Sunday,  from  the  pulpit.  He  justified  the  "  First  Blast " 
with  all  the  old  arrogance;  there  is  no  drawing  back 
there.  The  regiment  of  women  is  repugnant  to  nature, 
contumely  to  God,  and  a  subversion  of  good  order,  as 
before.  When  he  prays  for  the  maintenance  of  Eliza- 
beth's estate,  he  is  only  following  the  example  of  those 
prophets  of  God  who  warned  and  comforted  the  wicked 
kings  of  Israel;  or  of  Jeremiah,  who  bade  the  Jews  pray 
for  the  prosperity  of  Nebuchadnezzar.  As  for  the  Queen's 
aid,  there  is  no  harm  in  that:  quia  (these  are  his  own 
words)  quia  omnia  munda  mundis :  because  to  the  pure 
all  things  are  pure.  One  thing,  in  conclusion,  he  "  may 
not  pretermit; "  to  give  the  lie  in  the  throat  to  his  ac- 
cuser, where  he  charges  him  with  seeking  support 
against  his  native  country.  "What  I  have  been  to  my 
country,"  said  the  old  Reformer,  "what  I  have  been  to 

1  Knox's  Works,  ii.  278-280. 
295 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

my  country,  albeit  this  unthankful  age  will  not  know,  yet 
the  ages  to  come  will  be  compelled  to  bear  witness  to 
the  truth.  And  thus  I  cease,  requiring  of  all  men  that 
have  anything  to  oppone  against  me,  that  he  may  (they 
may)  do  it  so  plainly,  as  that  I  may  make  myself  and  all 
my  doings  manifest  to  the  world.  For  to  me  it  seemeth 
a  thing  unreasonable,  that,  in  this  my  decrepit  age,  I 
shall  be  compelled  to  fight  against  shadows,  and  howlets 
that  dare  not  abide  the  light."  ^ 

Now,  in  this,  which  may  be  called  his  Last  Plasty 
there  is  as  sharp  speaking  as  any  in  the  "  First  Blast" 
itself  He  is  of  the  same  opinion  to  the  end,  you  see, 
although  he  has  been  obliged  to  cloak  and  garble  that 
opinion  for  political  ends.  He  has  been  tacking  indeed, 
and  he  has  indeed  been  seeking  the  favour  of  a  queen  ; 
but  what  man  ever  sought  a  queen's  favour  with  a  more 
virtuous  purpose,  or  with  as  little  courtly  policy  ?  The 
question  of  consistency  is  delicate,  and  must  be  made 
plain.  Knox  never  changed  his  opinion  about  female 
rule,  but  lived  to  regret  that  he  had  published  that  opin- 
ion. Doubtless  he  had  many  thoughts  so  far  out  of  the 
range  of  public  sympathy,  that  he  could  only  keep  them 
to  himself,  and,  in  his  own  words,  bear  patiently  with 
the  errors  and  imperfections  that  he  could  not  amend. 
For  example,  I  make  no  doubt  myself  that,  in  his  own 
heart,  he  did  hold  the  shocking  dogma  attributed  to 
him  by  more  than  one  calumniator;  and  that,  had  the 
time  been  ripe,  had  there  been  aught  to  gain  by  it,  in- 
stead of  all  to  lose,  he  would  have  been  the  first  to 
assert  that  Scotland  was  elective  instead  of  hereditary 

1  Calderwood's  History  of  the  Kirk  of  Scotland,  edition  of  the  Wod- 
row  Society,  iii.  51-54. 

2^ 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

—  ** elective  as  in  the  days  of  paganism,"  as  one  Thevet 
says  in  holy  horror.^  And  yet,  because  the  time  was 
not  ripe,  1  find  no  hint  of  such  an  idea  in  his  collected 
works.  Now,  the  regiment  of  women  was  another 
matter  that  he  should  have  kept  to  himself;  right  or 
wrong,  his  opinion  did  not  fit  the  moment;  right  or 
wrong,  as  Aylmer  puts  it,  ''the  Blast  was  blown  out 
of  season."  And  this  it  was  that  he  began  to  perceive 
after  the  accession  of  Elizabeth;  not  that  he  had  been 
wrong,  and  that  female  rule  was  a  good  thing,  for  he 
had  said  from  the  first  that  "the  felicity  of  some  women 
in  their  empires  "  could  not  change  the  law  of  God  and 
the  nature  of  created  things;  not  this,  but  that  the 
regiment  of  women  was  one  of  those  imperfections  of 
society  which  must  be  borne  with  because  yet  they 
cannot  be  remedied.  The  thing  had  seemed  so  obvious 
to  him,  in  his  sense  of  unspeakable  masculine  superior- 
ity, and  his  fine  contempt  for  what  is  only  sanctioned 
by  antiquity  and  common  consent,  he  had  imagined 
that,  at  the  first  hint,  men  would  arise  and  shake  off 
the  debasing  tyranny.  He  found  himself  wrong,  and 
he  showed  that  he  could  be  moderate  in  his  own 
fashion,  and  understood  the  spirit  of  true  compromise. 
He  came  round  to  Calvin's  position,  in  fact,  but  by  a 
different  way.  And  it  derogates  nothing  from  the 
merit  of  this  wise  attitude  that  it  was  the  consequence 
of  a  change  of  interest.  We  are  all  taught  by  interest; 
and  if  the  interest  be  not  merely  selfish,  there  is  no 
wiser  preceptor  under  heaven,  and  perhaps  no  sterner. 
Such  is  the  history  of  John  Knox's  connection  with 
the  controversy  about  female  rule.     In  itself,  this  is  ob- 

1  Bayle's  Historical  Dictionary,  art.  Knox,  remark  G- 
297 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

viously  an  incomplete  study;  not  fully  to  be  understood, 
without  a  knowledge  of  his  private  relations  with  the 
other  sex,  and  what  he  thought  of  their  position  in 
domestic  life.  This  shall  be  dealt  with  in  another  paper. 

11.    PRIVATE   LIFE 

To  those  who  know  Knox  by  hearsay  only,  I  believe 
the  matter  of  this  paper  will  be  somewhat  astonishing. 
For  the  hard  energy  of  the  man  in  all  public  matters 
has  possessed  the  imagination  of  the  world;  he  remains 
for  posterity  in  certain  traditional  phrases,  browbeating 
Queen  Mary,  or  breaking  beautiful  carved  work  in  ab- 
beys and  cathedrals,  that  had  long  smoked  themselves 
out  and  were  no  more  than  sorry  ruins,  while  he  was 
still  quietly  teaching  children  in  a  country  gentleman's 
family.  It  does  not  consist  with  the  common  accepta- 
tion of  his  character  to  fancy  him  much  moved,  except 
with  anger.  And  yet  the  language  of  passion  came  to 
his  pen  as  readily,  whether  it  was  a  passion  of  denun- 
ciation against  some  of  the  abuses  that  vexed  his  right- 
eous spirit,  or  of  yearning  for  the  society  of  an  absent 
friend.  He  was  vehement  in  affection,  as  in  doctrine. 
I  will  not  deny  that  there  may  have  been,  along  with 
his  vehemence,  something  shifty,  and  for  the  moment 
only;  that,  like  many  men,  and  many  Scotchmen,  he 
saw  the  world  and  his  own  heart,  not  so  much  under 
any  very  steady,  equable  light,  as  by  extreme  flashes 
of  passion,  true  for  the  moment,  but  not  true  in  the 
long  run.  There  does  seem  to  me  to  be  something 
of  this  traceable  in  the  Reformer's  utterances :  precipi- 
tation and  repentance,  hardy  speech  and  action  some- 

398 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

what  circumspect,  a  strong  tendency  to  see  himself  in 
a  heroic  light  and  to  place  a  ready  belief  in  the  disposi- 
tion of  the  moment.  Withal  he  had  considerable  con- 
fidence in  himself,  and  in  the  uprightness  of  his  own 
disciplined  emotions,  underlying  much  sincere  aspira- 
tion after  spiritual  humility.  And  it  is  this  confidence 
that  makes  his  intercourse  with  women  so  interesting 
to  a  modern.  It  would  be  easy,  of  course,  to  make  fun 
of  the  whole  affair,  to  picture  him  strutting  vainglori- 
ously  among  these  inferior  creatures,  or  compare  a  re- 
ligious friendship  in  the  sixteenth  century  with  what 
was  called,  1  think,  a  literary  friendship  in  the  eigh- 
teenth. But  it  is  more  just  and  profitable  to  recognise 
what  there  is  sterling  and  human  underneath  all  his 
theoretical  affectations  of  superiority.  Women,  he  has 
said  in  his  "First  Blast,"  are  ''weak,  frail,  impatient, 
feeble,  and  foolish ; "  and  yet  it  does  not  appear  that  he 
was  himself  any  less  dependent  than  other  men  upon 
the  sympathy  and  affection  of  these  weak,  frail,  impa- 
tient, feeble,  and  foolish  creatures ;  it  seems  even  as  if 
he  had  been  rather  more  dependent  than  most. 

Of  those  who  are  to  act  influentially  on  their  fellows, 
we  should  expect  always  something  large  and  public  in 
their  way  of  life,  something  more  or  less  urbane  and 
comprehensive  in  their  sentiment  for  others.  We 
should  not  expect  to  see  them  spend  their  sympathy  in 
idyls,  however  beautiful.  We  should  not  seek  them 
among  those  who,  if  they  have  but  a  wife  to  their 
bosom,  ask  no  more  of  womankind,  just  as  they  ask  no 
more  of  their  own  sex,  if  they  can  find  a  friend  or  two 
for  their  immediate  need.  They  will  be  quick  to  feel 
all  the  pleasures  of  our  association  —  not  the  great  ones 

299 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

alone,  but  all.  They  will  know  not  love  only,  but  all 
those  other  ways  in  which  man  and  woman  mutually 
make  each  other  happy  —  by  sympathy,  by  admiration, 
by  the  atmosphere  they  bear  about  them  —  down  to  the 
mere  impersonal  pleasure  of  passing  happy  faces  in  the 
street.  For,  through  all  this  gradation,  the  difference 
of  sex  makes  itself  pleasurably  felt.  Down  to  the  most 
lukewarm  courtesies  of  life,  there  is  a  special  chivalry 
due  and  a  special  pleasure  received,  when  the  two  sexes 
are  brought  ever  so  lightly  into  contact.  We  love  our 
mothers  otherwise  than  we  love  our  fathers ;  a  sister  is 
not  as  a  brother  to  us;  and  friendship  between  man  and 
woman,  be  it  never  so  unalloyed  and  innocent,  is  not 
the  same  as  friendship  between  man  and  man.  Such 
friendship  is  not  even  possible  for  all.  To  conjoin  ten- 
derness for  a  woman  that  is  not  far  short  of  passionate 
with  such  disinterestedness  and  beautiful  gratuity  of 
affection  as  there  is  between  friends  of  the  same  sex, 
requires  no  ordinary  disposition  in  the  man.  For  either 
it  would  presuppose  quite  womanly  delicacy  of  percep- 
tion, and,  as  it  were,  a  curiosity  in  shades  of  differing 
sentiment;  or  it  would  mean  that  he  had  accepted  the 
large,  simple  divisions  of  society :  a  strong  and  positive 
spirit  robustly  virtuous,  who  has  chosen  a  better  part 
coarsely,  and  holds  to  it  steadfastly,  with  all  its  conse- 
quences of  pain  to  himself  and  others;  as  one  who 
should  go  straight  before  him  on  a  journey,  neither 
tempted  by  wayside  flowers  nor  very  scrupulous  of 
small  lives  under  foot.  It  was  in  virtue  of  this  latter 
disposition  that  Knox  was  capable  of  those  intimacies 
with  women  that  embellished  his  life;  and  we  find  him 
preserved  for  us  in  old  letters  as  a  man  of  many  women 

300 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

friends;  a  man  of  some  expansion  toward  the  other 
sex;  a  man  ever  ready  to  comfort  weeping  women,  and 
to  weep  along  with  them. 

Of  such  scraps  and  fragments  of  evidence  as  to  his 
private  life  and  more  intimate  thoughts  as  have  survived 
to  us  from  all  the  perils  that  environ  written  paper,  an 
astonishingly  large  proportion  is  in  the  shape  of  letters 
to  women  of  his  familiarity.  He  was  twice  married, 
but  that  is  not  greatly  to  the  purpose ;  for  the  Turk, 
who  thinks  even  more  meanly  of  women  than  John 
Knox,  is  none  the  less  given  to  marrying.  What  is 
really  significant  is  quite  apart  from  marriage.  For  the 
man  Knox  was  a  true  man,  and  woman,  the  ewig-wei- 
Uiche,  was  as  necessary  to  him,  in  spite  of  all  low 
theories,  as  ever  she  was  to  Goethe.  He  came  to  her 
in  a  certain  halo  of  his  own,  as  the  minister  of  truth, 
just  as  Goethe  came  to  her  in  a  glory  of  art;  he  made 
himself  necessary  to  troubled  hearts  and  minds  exercised 
in  the  painful  complications  that  naturally  result  from 
all  changes  in  the  world's  way  of  thinking;  and  those 
whom  he  had  thus  helped  became  dear  to  him,  and 
were  made  the  chosen  companions  of  his  leisure  if  they 
were  at  hand,  or  encouraged  and  comforted  by  letter  if 
they  were  afar. 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  Knox  had  been  a  pres- 
byter of  the  old  Church,  and  that  the  many  women 
whom  we  shall  see  gathering  around  him,  as  he  goes 
through  life,  had  probably  been  accustomed,  while  still 
in  the  communion  of  Rome,  to  rely  much  upon  some 
chosen  spiritual  director,  so  that  the  intimacies  of  which 
1  propose  to  offer  some  account,  while  testifying  to  a 
good  heart  in  the  Reformer,  testify  also  to  a  certain  sur- 

301 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

vival  of  the  spirit  of  the  confessional  in  the  Reformed 
Church,  and  are  not  properly  to  be  judged  without  this 
idea.  There  is  no  friendship  so  noble,  but  it  is  the 
product  of  the  time;  and  a  world  of  little  finical  ob- 
servances, and  little  frail  proprieties  and  fashions  of  the 
hour,  go  to  make  or  to  mar,  to  stint  or  to  perfect,  the 
union  of  spirits  the  most  loving  and  the  most  intolerant 
of  such  interference.  The  trick  of  the  country  and  the 
age  steps  in  even  between  the  mother  and  her  child, 
counts  out  their  caresses  upon  niggardly  fingers,  and 
says,  in  the  voice  of  authority,  that  this  one  thing  shall 
be  a  matter  of  confidence  between  them,  and  this  other 
thing  shall  not.  And  thus  it  is  that  we  must  take  into 
reckoning  whatever  tended  to  modify  the  social  atmos- 
phere in  which  Knox  and  his  women  friends  met,  and 
loved  and  trusted  each  other.  To  the  man  who  had 
been  their  priest  and  was  now  their  minister,  women 
would  be  able  to  speak  with  a  confidence  quite  impos- 
sible in  these  latter  days;  the  women  would  be  able  to 
speak,  and  the  man  to  hear.  It  was  a  beaten  road  just 
then ;  and  1  dare  say  we  should  be  no  less  scandalised 
at  their  plain  speech  than  they,  if  they  could  come  back 
to  earth,  would  be  offended  at  our  waltzes  and  worldly 
fashions.  This,  then,  was  the  footing  on  which  Knox 
stood  with  his  many  women  friends.  The  reader  will 
see,  as  he  goes  on,  how  much  of  warmth,  of  interest, 
and  of  that  happy  mutual  dependence  which  is  the  very 
gist  of  friendship,  he  contrived  to  ingraft  upon  this 
somewhat  dry  relationship  of  penitent  and  confessor. 

It  must  be  understood  that  we  know  nothing  of  his 
intercourse  with  women  (as  indeed  we  know  little  at 
all  about  his  life)  until  he  came  to  Berwick  in  1 549,  when 

302 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

he  was  already  in  the  forty-fifth  year  of  his  age.  At  the 
same  time  it  is  just  possible  that  some  of  a  little  group 
at  Edinburgh,  with  whom  he  corresponded  during  his 
last  absence,  may  have  been  friends  of  an  older  stand- 
ing. Certainly  they  were,  of  all  his  female  correspon- 
dents, the  least  personally  favored.  He  treats  them 
throughout  in  a  comprehensive  sort  of  spirit  that  must 
at  times  have  been  a  little  wounding.  Thus,  he  remits 
one  of  them  to  his  former  letters,  **  which  1  trust  be  com- 
mon betwixt  you  and  the  rest  of  our  sisters,  for  to  me 
ye  are  all  equal  in  Christ."  ^  Another  letter  is  a  gem  in 
this  way.  ''Albeit,"  it  begins,  "albeit  I  have  no  par- 
ticular matter  to  write  unto  you,  beloved  sister,  yet  I 
could  not  refrain  to  write  these  few  lines  to  you  in 
declaration  of  my  remembrance  of  you.  True  it  is  that 
I  have  many  whom  I  bear  in  equal  remembrance  before 
God  with  you,  to  whom  at  present  I  write  nothing, 
either  for  that  I  esteem  them  stronger  than  you,  and 
therefore  they  need  the  less  my  rude  labours,  or  else  be- 
cause they  have  not  provoked  me  by  their  writing  to 
recompense  their  remembrance."^  His  "sisters  in  Ed- 
inburgh "  had  evidently  to  "  provoke  "  his  attention 
pretty  constantly;  nearly  all  his  letters  are,  on  the  face 
of  them,  answers  to  questions,  and  the  answers  are  given 
with  a  certain  crudity  that  I  do  not  find  repeated  when 
he  writes  to  those  he  really  cares  for.  So  when  they 
consult  him  about  women's  apparel  (a  subject  on  which 
his  opinion  may  be  pretty  correctly  imagined  by  the  in- 
genious reader  for  himself)  he  takes  occasion  to  antici- 
pate some  of  the  most  offensive  matter  of  the  "First 
Blast "  in  a  style  of  real  brutality. ^  It  is  not  merely  that 
1  Works,  iv.  244.  2  Works,  iv.  246.  3  lb.  iv.  225. 

303 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

he  tells  them  "the  garments  of  women  do  declare  their 
weakness  and  inability  to  execute  the  office  of  man,'* 
though  that  in  itself  is  neither  very  wise  nor  very  oppor- 
tune in  such  a  correspondence  one  would  think;  but  if 
the  reader  will  take  the  trouble  to  wade  through  the  long, 
tedious  sermon  for  himself,  he  will  see  proof  enough  that 
Knox  neither  loved,  nor  very  deeply  respected,  the  women 
he  was  then  addressing.  In  very  truth,  I  believe  these 
Edinburgh  sisters  simply  bored  him.  He  had  a  certain 
interest  in  them  as  his  children  in  the  Lord ;  they  were 
continually  "provoking  him  by  their  writing;"  and,  if 
they  handed  his  letters  about,  writing  to  them  was  a& 
good  a  form  of  publication  as  was  then  open  to  him  in 
Scotland.  There  is  one  letter,  however,  in  this  budget, 
addressed  to  the  wife  of  Clerk-Register  Mackgil,  which 
is  worthy  of  some  further  mention.  The  Clerk-Register 
had  not  opened  his  heart,  it  would  appear,  to  the  preach- 
ing of  the  Gospel,  and  Mrs.  Mackgil  has  written,  seeking 
the  Reformer's  prayers  in  his  behalf.  "Your  husband," 
he  answers,  "is  dear  to  me  for  that  he  is  a  man  indued 
with  some  good  gifts,  but  more  dear  for  that  he  is  your 
husband.  Charity  moveth  me  to  thirst  his  illumination, 
both  for  his  comfort  and  for  the  trouble  which  you  sus- 
tain by  his  coldness,  which  justly  may  be  called  infi- 
delity. "  He  wishes  her,  however,  not  to  hope  too  much ; 
he  can  promise  that  his  prayers  will  be  earnest,  but  not 
that  they  will  be  effectual ;  it  is  possible  that  this  is  to 
be  her  "cross"  in  life;  that  "her  head,  appointed  by 
God  for  her  comfort,  should  be  her  enemy."  And  if 
this  be  so,  well,  there  is  nothing  for  it;  "  with  patience 
she  must  abide  God's  merciful  deliverance,"  taking  heed 
only  that  she  does  not  "obey  manifest  iniquity  for  the 

304 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

pleasure  of  any  mortal  man."^  I  conceive  this  epistle 
would  have  given  a  very  modified  sort  of  pleasure  to  the 
Clerk- Register,  had  it  chanced  to  fall  into  his  hands. 
Compare  its  tenor  —  the  dry  resignation  not  without  a 
hope  of  merciful  deliverance  therein  recommended  — 
with  these  words  from  another  letter,  written  but  the 
year  before  to  two  married  women  of  London:  ''Call 
first  for  grace  by  Jesus,  and  thereafter  communicate  with 
your  faithful  husbands,  and  then  shall  God,  I  doubt  not, 
conduct  your  footsteps,  and  direct  your  counsels  to  His 
glory." 2  Here  the  husbands  are  put  in  a  very  high 
place;  we  can  recognise  here  the  same  hand  that  has 
written  for  our  instruction  how  the  man  is  set  above 
the  woman,  even  as  God  above  the  angels.  But  the 
point  of  the  distinction  is  plain.  For  Clerk-Register 
Mackgil  was  not  a  faithful  husband ;  displayed,  indeed, 
toward  religion  a  "  coldness  which  justly  might  be  called 
infidelity. "  We  shall  see  in  more  notable  instances  how 
much  Knox's  conception  of  the  duty  of  wives  varies  ac- 
cording to  the  zeal  and  orthodoxy  of  the  husband. 

As  I  have  said,  he  may  possibly  have  made  the  ac- 
quaintance of  Mrs.  Mackgil,  Mrs.  Guthrie,  or  some  other, 
or  all,  of  these  Edinburgh  friends  while  he  was  still 
Douglas  of  Longniddry's  private  tutor.  But  our  certain 
knowledge  begins  in  1 549.  He  was  then  but  newly  es- 
caped from  his  captivity  in  France,  after  pulling  an  oar 
for  nineteen  months  on  the  benches  of  the  galley  Notre 
Dame;  now  up  the  rivers,  holding  stealthy  intercourse 
with  other  Scottish  prisoners  in  the  castle  of  Rouen; 
now  out  in  the  North  Sea,  raising  his  sick  head  to  catch 
a  glimpse  of  the  far-off  steeples  of  St.  Andrews.  And 
1  Works,  iv.  245.  ^Ih.  iv.  221. 

305 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

now  he  was  sent  down  by  the  English  Privy  Council  as 
a  preacher  to  Berwick-upon-Tweed;  somewhat  shaken 
in  health  by  all  his  hardships,  full  of  pains  and  agues,  and 
tormented  by  gravel,  that  sorrow  of  great  men ;  alto- 
gether, what  with  his  romantic  story,  his  weak  health, 
and  his  great  faculty  of  eloquence,  a  very  natural  object 
for  the  sympathy  of  devout  women.  At  this  happy 
juncture  he  fell  into  the  company  of  a  Mrs.  Elizabeth 
Bowes,  wife  of  Richard  Bowes,  of  Aske,  in  Yorkshire, 
to  whom  she  had  borne  twelve  children.  She  was  a  re- 
ligious hypochondriac,  a  very  weariful  woman,  full  of 
doubts  and  scruples,  and  giving  no  rest  on  earth  either 
to  herself  or  to  those  whom  she  honoured  with  her  con- 
fidence. From  the  first  time  she  heard  Knox  preach  she 
formed  a  high  opinion  of  him,  and  was  solicitous  ever 
after  of  his  society.  ^  Nor  was  Knox  unresponsive.  **  I 
have  always  delighted  in  your  company,"  he  writes, 
"and  when  labours  would  permit,  you  know  I  have 
not  spared  hours  to  talk  and  commune  with  you."  Of- 
ten when  they  had  met  in  depression  he  reminds  her, 
"God  hath  sent  great  comfort  unto  both."  2  We  can 
gather  from  such  letters  as  are  yet  extant  how  close  and 
continuous  was  their  intercourse.  "  I  think  it  best  you 
remain  till  the  morrow,"  he  writes  once,  "and  so  shall 
we  commune  at  large  at  afternoon.  This  day  you  know 
to  be  the  day  of  my  study  and  prayer  unto  God ;  yet  if 
your  trouble  be  intolerable,  or  if  you  think  my  presence 
may  release  your  pain,  do  as  the  Spirit  shall  move 
you.  .  .  .  Your  messenger  found  me  in  bed,  after 
a  sore  trouble  and  most  dolorous  night,  and  so  dolour 
may  complain  to  dolour  when  we  two  meet.     .     .     . 

1  Works,  vi.  514,  ^  Jb.  iii,  338. 

306 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

And  this  is  more  plain  than  ever  I  spoke,  to  let  you 
know  you  have  a  companion  in  trouble."  ^  Once  we 
have  the  curtain  raised  for  a  moment,  and  can  look  at 
the  two  together  for  the  length  of  a  phrase.  "  After  the 
writing  of  this  preceding,"  writes  Knox,  "your  brother 
and  mine,  Harrie  Wycliffe,  did  advertise  me  by  writing, 
that  your  adversary  (the  devil)  took  occasion  to  trouble 
you  because  that  /  did  start  back  from  yon  rehearsing 
your  infirmities.  I  remember  myself  so  to  have  done,  and 
that  is  my  common  consuetude  when  anything  pier  ceth  or 
toucheth  my  heart.  Call  to  your  mind  what  I  did  stand- 
ing at  the  cupboard  at  Alnwick.  In  very  deed  I  thought 
that  no  creature  had  been  tempted  as  I  was;  and  when 
I  heard  proceed  from  your  mouth  the  very  same  words 
that  he  troubles  me  with,  I  did  wonder  and  from  my 
heart  lament  your  sore  trouble,  knowing  in  myself  the 
dolour  thereof. "  ^  Now  intercourse  of  so  very  close  a  de- 
scription, whether  it  be  religious  intercourse  or  not,  is 
apt  to  displease  and  disquiet  a  husband;  and  we  know 
incidentally  from  Knox  himself  that  there  was  some 
little  scandal  about  his  intimacy  with  Mrs.  Bowes. 
**The  slander  and  fear  of  men,"  he  writes,  "has  im- 
peded me  to  exercise  my  pen  so  oft  as  I  would ;  yea, 
very  shame  hath  holden  me  from  your  company,  when  I 
was  most  surely  persuaded  that  God  had  appointed  me 
at  that  time  to  comfort  and  feed  your  hungry  and  af- 
flicted soul.  God  in  His  infinite  mercy/'  he  goes  on, 
''  remove  not  only  from  me  all  fear  that  tendeth  not  to 
godliness,  but  from  others  suspicion  to  judge  of  me  other- 
wise than  it  becometh  one  member  to  judge  of  another.  "* 
And  the  scandal,  such  as  it  was,  would  not  be  allayed 
1  Works,  iii.  352,  353.  ^Ih,  iii.  350.  ^  lb.  iii.  390,391. 
307 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES   OF   MEN   AND   BOOKS 

by  the  dissension  in  which  Mrs.  Bowes  seems  to  have 
lived  with  her  family  upon  the  matter  of  religion,  and 
the  countenance  shown  by  Knox  to  her  resistance. 
Talking  of  these  conflicts,  and  her  courage  against  "her 
own  flesh  and  most  inward  affections,  yea,  against  some 
of  her  most  natural  friends,"  he  writes  it,  **  to  the  praise 
of  God,  he  has  wondered  at  the  bold  constancy  which 
he  has  found  in  her  when  his  own  heart  was  faint."  ^ 

Now,  perhaps  in  order  to  stop  scandalous  mouths, 
perhaps  out  of  a  desire  to  bind  the  much-loved  evan- 
gelist nearer  to  her  in  the  only  manner  possible,  Mrs. 
Bowes  conceived  the  scheme  of  marrying  him  to  her 
fifth  daughter,  Marjorie;  and  the  Reformer  seems  to  have 
fallen  in  with  it  readily  enough.  It  seems  to  have  been 
believed  in  the  family  that  the  whole  matter  had  been 
originally  made  up  between  these  two,  with  no  very 
spontaneous  inclination  on  the  part  of  the  bride.^  Knox's 
idea  of  marriage,  as  I  have  said,  was  not  the  same  for 
all  men ;  but  on  the  whole,  it  was  not  lofty.  We  have 
a  curious  letter  of  his,  written  at  the  request  of  Queen 
Mary,  to  the  Earl  of  Argyle,  on  very  delicate  household 
matters;  which,  as  he  tells  us,  "was  not  well  accepted 
of  the  said  Earl."^  We  may  suppose,  however,  that 
his  own  home  was  regulated  in  a  similar  spirit.  I  can 
fancy  that  for  such  a  man,  emotional,  and  with  a  need, 
now  and  again,  to  exercise  parsimony  in  emotions  not 
strictly  needful,  something  a  little  mechanical,  something 
hard  and  fast  and  clearly  understood,  would  enter  into 
his  ideal  of  a  home.  There  were  storms  enough  with- 
out, and  equability  was  to  be  desired  at  the  fireside  even 
at  a  sacrifice  of  deeper  pleasures.     So,  from  a  wife,  of 

1  Works,  Hi.  142.        ^Ib.  iii.  378.        ^Ib.  ii.  379. 
308 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

all  women,  he  would  not  ask  much.  One  letter  to  her 
which  has  come  down  to  us  is,  1  had  almost  said,  con- 
spicuous for  coldness.^  He  calls  her,  as  he  called  other 
female  correspondents,  "dearly  beloved  sister;"  the 
epistle  is  doctrinal,  and  nearly  the  half  of  it  bears,  not 
upon  her  own  case,  but  upon  that  of  her  mother.  How- 
ever, we  know  what  Heine  wrote  in  his  wife's  album ; 
and  there  is,  after  all,  one  passage  that  may  be  held  to 
intimate  some  tenderness,  although  even  that  admits  of 
an  amusingly  opposite  construction.  "I  think,"  he 
says,  'M  think  this  be  the  first  letter  I  ever  wrote  to 
you."  This,  if  we  are  to  take  it  literally,  may  pair  off 
with  the  **two  or  three  children"  whom  Montaigne 
mentions  having  lost  at  nurse;  the  one  is  as  eccentric 
in  a  lover  as  the  other  in  a  parent.  Nevertheless,  he 
displayed  more  energy  in  the  course  of  his  troubled 
wooing  than  might  have  been  expected.  The  whole 
Bowes  family,  angry  enough  already  at  the  influence  he 
had  obtained  over  the  mother,  set  their  faces  obdurately 
against  the  match.  And  I  dare  say  the  opposition  quick- 
ened his  inclination.  I  fmd  him  writing  to  Mrs.  Bowes 
that  she  need  no  further  trouble  herself  about  the  mar- 
riage; it  should  now  be  his  business  altogether;  it  be- 
hoved him  now  to  jeopard  his  life  *'for  the  comfort  of 
his  own  flesh,  both  fear  and  friendship  of  all  earthly 
creature  laid  aside."  ^  This  is  a  wonderfully  chivalrous 
utterance  for  a  Reformer  forty-eight  years  old;  and  it 
compares  well  with  the  leaden  coquetries  of  Calvin,  not 
much  over  thirty,  taking  this  and  that  into  considera- 
tion, weighing  together  dowries  and  religious  qualifica- 
tions and  the  instancy  of  friends,  and  exhibiting  what 

1  Works,  iii.  394.         ^Ih.,  iii.  376. 
309 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

M.  Bungener  calls  "an  honourable  and  Christian  diffi- 
culty" of  choice,  in  frigid  indecisions  and  insincere  pro- 
posals. But  Knox's  next  letter  is  in  a  humbler  tone;  he 
has  not  found  the  negotiation  so  easy  as  he  fancied ;  he 
despairs  of  the  marriage  altogether,  and  talks  of  leaving 
England, —  regards  not  "what  country  consumes  his 
wicked  carcass."  "You  shall  understand,"  he  says, 
"that  this  sixth  of  November,  I  spoke  with  Sir  Robert 
Bowes"  (the  head  of  the  family,  his  bride's  uncle)  "in 
the  matter  you  know,  according  to  your  request;  whose 
disdainful,  yea,  despiteful,  words  hath  so  pierced  my 
heart  that  my  life  is  bitter  to  me.  I  bear  a  good  coun- 
tenance with  a  sore  troubled  heart,  because  he  that  ought 
to  consider  matters  with  a  deep  judgment  is  become  not 
only  a  despiser,  but  also  a  taunter  of  God's  messengers 
—  God  be  merciful  unto  him !  Among  others  his  most 
unpleasing  words,  while  that  I  was  about  to  have  de- 
clared my  heart  in  the  whole  matter,  he  said,  *  Away 
with  your  rhetorical  reasons !  for  I  will  not  be  persuaded 
with  them.'  God  knows  I  did  use  no  rhetoric  nor  col- 
oured speech ;  but  would  have  spoken  the  truth,  and 
that  in  most  simple  manner.  1  am  not  a  good  orator  in 
my  own  cause;  but  what  he  would  not  be  content  to 
hear  of  me,  God  shall  declare  to  him  one  day  to  his  dis- 
pleasure, unless  he  repent.  "^  Poor  Knox,  you  see,  is 
quite  commoved.  It  has  been  a  very  unpleasant  inter- 
view. And  as  it  is  the  only  sample  that  we  have  of  how 
things  went  with  him  during  his  courtship,  we  may  in- 
fer that  the  period  was  not  as  agreeable  for  Knox  as  it 
has  been  for  some  others. 
However,  when  once  they  were  married,  I  imagine 

1  Works,  iii.  378. 
310 


JOHN   KNOX  AND  HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

he  and  Marjorie  Bowes  hit  it  off  together  comfortably 
enough.  The  little  we  know  of  it  may  be  brought  to- 
gether in  a  very  short  space.  She  bore  him  two  sons. 
He  seems  to  have  kept  her  pretty  busy,  and  depended 
on  her  to  some  degree  in  his  work;  so  that  when  she 
fell  ill,  his  papers  got  at  once  into  disorder.  ^  Certainly 
she  sometimes  wrote  to  his  dictation;  and,  in  this  ca- 
pacity, he  calls  her  **his  left  hand."^  In  June  1559,  at 
the  headiest  moment  of  the  Reformation  in  Scotland,  he 
writes  regretting  the  absence  of  his  helpful  colleague, 
Goodman,  ** whose  presence"  (this  is  the  not  very 
grammatical  form  of  his  lament)  ''whose  presence  I 
more  thirst,  than  she  that  is  my  own  flesh."  ^  And  this, 
considering  the  source  and  the  circumstances,  may  be 
held  as  evidence  of  a  very  tender  sentiment.  He  tells 
us  himself  in  his  history,  on  the  occasion  of  a  certain 
meeting  at  the  Kirk  of  Field,  that  **he  was  in  no  small 
heaviness  by  reason  of  the  late  death  of  his  dear  bed- 
fellow, Marjorie  Bowes."  *  Calvin,  condoling  with  him, 
speaks  of  her  as  "a  wife  whose  like  is  not  to  be  found 
everywhere "  (that  is  very  like  Calvin),  and  again,  as 
"the  most  delightful  of  wives."  We  know  what  Cal- 
vin thought  desirable  in  a  wife,  ''good  humour,  chas- 
tity, thrift,  patience,  and  solicitude  for  her  husband's 
health,"  and  so  we  may  suppose  that  the  first  Mrs. 
Knox  fell  not  far  short  of  this  ideal. 

The  actual  date  of  the  marriage  is  uncertain ;  but  by 
September  1 566,  at  the  latest,  the  Reformer  was  settled 
in  Geneva  with  his  wife.  There  is  no  fear  either  that 
he  will  be  dull ;  even  if  the  chaste,  thrifty,  patient  Mar- 

1  Works,  vi  .104.  2  /j.  y.  5. 

'  lb.  vi.  27.  *  lb.  ii.  138. 

3>» 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

jorie  should  not  altogether  occupy  his  mind,  he  need  not 
go  out  of  the  house  to  seek  more  female  sympathy;  for 
behold!  Mrs.  Bowes  is  duly  domesticated  with  the 
young  couple.  Dr.  M'Crie  imagined  that  Richard  Bowes 
was  now  dead,  and  his  widow,  consequently,  free  to 
live  where  she  would;  and  where  could  she  go  more 
naturally  than  to  the  house  of  a  married  daughter  ?  This, 
however,  is  not  the  case.  Richard  Bowes  did  not  die 
till  at  least  two  years  later.  It  is  impossible  to  believe 
that  he  approved  of  his  wife's  desertion,  after  so  many 
years  of  marriage,  after  twelve  children  had  been  born 
to  them ;  and  accordingly  we  find  in  his  will,  dated  1 558, 
no  mention  either  of  her  or  of  Knox's  wife.^  This  is 
plain  sailing.  It  is  easy  enough  to  understand  the  anger 
of  Bowes  against  this  interloper,  who  had  come  into  a 
quiet  family,  married  the  daughter  in  spite  of  the  father's 
opposition,  alienated  the  wife  from  the  husband  and  the 
husband's  religion,  supported  her  in  a  long  course  of 
resistance  and  rebellion,  and,  after  years  of  intimacy, 
already  too  close  and  tender  for  any  jealous  spirit  to  be- 
hold without  resentment,  carried  her  away  with  him  at 
last  into  a  foreign  land.  But  it  is  not  quite  easy  to  un- 
derstand how,  except  out  of  sheer  weariness  and  dis- 
gust, he  was  ever  brought  10  agree  to  the  arrangement. 
Nor  is  it  easy  to  square  the  Reformer's  conduct  with  his 
public  teaching.  We  have,  for  instance,  a  letter  ad- 
dressed by  him,  Craig,  and  Spottiswood,  to  the  Arch- 
bishops of  Canterbury  and  York,  anent  "a  wicked  and 
rebellious  woman,"  one  Anne  Good,  spouse  to  "John 
Barron,  a  minister  of  Christ  Jesus  his  evangel,"  who, 
"after  great  rebellion  shown  unto  him,  and  divers  ad- 

iMr.  Laing's  preface  to  the  sixth  volume  of  Knox's  Works,  p.  Ixii. 
313 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

monitions  given,  as  well  by  himself  as  by  others  in  his 
name,  that  she  should  in  no  wise  depart  from  this  realm, 
nor  from  his  house  without  his  license,  hath  not  the  less 
stubbornly  and  rebelliously  departed,  separated  herself 
from  his  society,  left  his  house,  and  withdrawn  herself 
from  this  realm."  ^  Perhaps  some  sort  of  licence  was 
extorted,  as  1  have  said,  from  Richard  Bowes,  weary 
with  years  of  domestic  dissension ;  but  setting  that  aside, 
the  words  employed  with  so  much  righteous  indigna- 
tion by  Knox,  Craig,  and  Spottiswood,  to  describe  the 
conduct  of  that  wicked  and  rebellious  woman,  Mrs. 
Barron,  would  describe  nearly  as  exactly  the  conduct  of 
the  religious  Mrs.  Bowes.  It  is  a  little  bewildering,  un- 
til we  recollect  the  distinction  between  faithful  and  un- 
faithful husbands;  for  Barron  was  "a  minister  of  Christ 
Jesus  his  evangel,"  while  Richard  Bowes,  besides  being 
own  brother  to  a  despiser  and  taunter  of  God's  mes- 
sengers, is  shrewdly  suspected  to  have  been  ''a  bigoted 
adherent  of  the  Roman  Catholic  faith,"  or,  as  Knox 
himself  would  have  expressed  it,  "a  rotten  Papist." 

You  would  have  thought  that  Knox*  was  now  pretty 
well  supplied  with  female  society.  But  we  are  not  yet 
at  the  end  of  the  roll.  The  last  year  of  his  sojourn  in 
England  had  been  spent  principally  in  London,  where 
he  was  resident  as  one  of  the  chaplains  of  Edward  the 
Sixth ;  and  here  he  boasts,  although  a  stranger,  he  had, 
by  God's  grace,  found  favour  before  many.^  The  godly 
women  of  the  metropolis  made  much  of  him;  once  he 
writes  to  Mrs.  Bowes  that  her  last  letter  had  found  him 
closeted  with  three,  and  he  and  the  three  women  were 
all  in  tears.3  Out  of  all,  however,  he  had  chosen  two. 
1  Works,  vi.  534.        2  /&.  jy.  220.        3  Jh.  iii.  380. 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

*' God/'  he  writes  to  them,  "brought  us  in  such  fa- 
miliar acquaintance,  that  your  hearts  were  incensed  and 
kindled  with  a  special  care  over  me,  as  a  mother  useth  to 
he  aver  her  natural  child  ;  and  my  heart  was  opened 
and  compelled  in  your  presence  to  be  more  plain  than 
ever  I  was  to  any."  ^  And  out  of  the  two  even  he  had 
chosen  one,  Mrs.  Anne  Locke,  wife  to  Mr.  Harry  Locke, 
merchant,  nigh  to  Bow  Kirk,  Cheapside,  in  London,  as 
the  address  runs.  If  one  may  venture  to  judge  upon 
such  imperfect  evidence,  this  was  the  woman  he  loved 
best.  I  have  a  difficulty  in  quite  forming  to  myself  an 
idea  of  her  character.  She  may  have  been  one  of  the 
three  tearful  visitors  before  alluded  to;  she  may  even 
have  been  that  one  of  them  who  was  so  profoundly 
moved  by  some  passages  of  Mrs.  Bowes's  letter,  which 
the  Reformer  opened,  and  read  aloud  to  them  before 
they  went.  *'  O  would  to  God,"  cried  this  impression- 
able matron,  "would  to  God  that  I  might  speak  with 
that  person,  for  I  perceive  there  are  more  tempted  than 
L"2  This  may  have  been  Mrs.  Locke,  as  I  say;  but 
even  if  it  were,  we  must  not  conclude  from  this  one  fact 
that  she  was  such  another  as  Mrs.  Bowes.  All  the  evi- 
dence tends  the  other  way.  She  was  a  woman  of  un- 
derstanding, plainly,  who  followed  political  events  with 
interest,  and  to  whom  Knox  thought  it  worth  while  to 
write,  in  detail,  the  history  of  his  trials  and  successes. 
She  was  religious,  but  without  that  morbid  perversity 
of  spirit  that  made  religion  so  heavy  a  burden  for  the 
poor-hearted  Mrs.  Bowes.  More  of  her  I  do  not  find, 
save  testimony  to  the  profound  affection  that  united  her 
to  the  Reformer.     So  we  find  him  writing  to  her  from 

a  Ih.  iii.  380. 
3>4 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

Geneva,  in  such  terms  as  these:  —  "You  write  that 
your  desire  is  earnest  to  see  me.  Dear  sister,  if  I  should 
express  the  thirst  and  languor  which  I  have  had  for  your 
presence,  I  should  appear  to  pass  measure.  .  .  .  Yea,  I 
weep  and  rejoice  in  remembrance  of  you  ;  but  that  would 
evanish  by  the  comfort  of  your  presence,  which  I  assure 
you  is  so  dear  to  me,  that  if  the  charge  of  this  little 
flock  here,  gathered  together  in  Christ's  name,  did  not 
impede  me,  my  coming  should  prevent  my  letter."^  I 
say  that  this  was  written  from  Geneva;  and  yet  you 
will  observe  that  it  is  no  consideration  for  his  wife  or 
mother-in-law,  only  the  charge  of  his  little  flock,  that 
keeps  him  from  setting  out  forthwith  for  London,  to 
comfort  himself  with  the  dear  presence  of  Mrs.  Locke. 
Remember  that  was  a  certain  plausible  enough  pretext 
for  Mrs.  Locke  to  come  to  Geneva —  "the  most  perfect 
school  of  Christ  that  ever  was  on  earth  since  the 
days  of  the  Apostles" — for  we  are  now  under  the 
reign  of  that  "horrible  monster  Jezebel  of  England," 
when  a  lady  of  good  orthodox  sentiments  was  better 
out  of  London.  It  was  doubtful,  however,  whether 
this  was  to  be.  She  was  detained  in  England,  partly 
by  circumstances  unknown,  "partly  by  empire  of  her 
head,"  Mr.  Harry  Locke,  the  Cheapside  merchant. 
It  is  somewhat  humorous  to  see  Knox  struggling  for 
resignation,  now  that  he  has  to  do  with  a  faithful  hus- 
band (for  Mr.  Harry  Locke  was  faithful).  Had  it 
been  otherwise,  "in  my  heart,"  he  says,  "I  could 
have  wished  —  yea,"  here  he  breaks  out,  "yea,  and 
cannot  cease  to  wish  —  that  God  would  guide  you  to 
this  place. "2  And  after  all,  he  had  not  long  to  wait, 
1  Works,  iv.  238.  2/j,  jy.  240. 
3«5 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

for,  whether  Mr.  Harry  Locke  died  in  the  interval,  or 
was  wearied,  he  too,  into  giving  permission,  five  months 
after  the  date  of  the  letter  last  quoted,  "Mrs.  Anne 
Locke,  Harry  her  son,  and  Anne  her  daughter,  and 
Katharine  her  maid,"  arrived  in  that  perfect  school  of 
Christ,  the  Presbyterian  paradise,  Geneva.  So  now, 
and  for  the  next  two  years,  the  cup  of  Knox's  happi- 
ness was  surely  full.  Of  an  afternoon,  when  the  bells 
rang  out  for  the  sermon,  the  shops  closed,  and  the 
good  folk  gathered  to  the  churches,  psalm-book  in 
hand,  we  can  imagine  him  drawing  near  to  the  Eng- 
glish  chapel  in  quite  patriarchal  fashion,  with  Mrs. 
Knox  and  Mrs.  Bowes  and  Mrs.  Locke,  James  his  ser- 
vant, Patrick  his  pupiL  and  a  due  following  of  children 
and  maids.  He  might  be  alone  at  work  all  morning 
in  his  study,  for  he  wrote  much  during  these  two 
years;  but  at  night,  you  may  be  sure  there  was  a 
circle  of  admiring  women,  eager  to  hear  the  new  para- 
graph, and  not  sparing  of  applause.  And  what  work, 
among  others,  was  he  elaborating  at  this  time,  but  the 
notorious  "First  Blast"  ?  So  that  he  may  have  rolled 
out  in  his  big  pulpit  voice,  how  women  were  weak, 
frail,  impatient,  feeble,  foolish,  inconstant,  variable, 
cruel,  and  lacking  the  spirit  of  counsel,  and  how  men 
were  above  them,  even  as  God  is  above  the  angels,  in 
the  ears  of  his  own  wife,  and  the  two  dearest  friends 
he  had  on  earth.  But  he  had  lost  the  sense  of  in- 
congruity, and  continued  to  despise  in  theory  the  sex 
he  honoured  so  much  in  practice,  of  whom  he  chose 
his  most  intimate  associates,  and  whose  courage  he  was 
compelled  to  wonder  at,  when  his  own  heart  was 
faint. 

ai6 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

We  may  say  that  such  a  man  was  not  worthy  of  his 
fortune;  and  so,  as  he  would  not  learn,  he  was  taken 
away  from  that  agreeable  school,  and  his  fellowship  of 
women  was  broken  up,  not  to  be  reunited.  Called  into 
Scotland  to  take  at  last  that  strange  position  in  history 
which  is  his  best  claim  to  commemoration,  he  was  fol- 
lowed thither  by  his  wife  and  his  mother-in-law.  The 
wife  soon  died.  The  death  of  her  daughter  did  not  al- 
together separate  Mrs.  Bowes  from  Knox,  but  she  seems 
to  have  come  and  gone  between  his  house  and  England. 
In  1562,  however,  we  find  him  characterised  as  "a sole 
man  by  reason  of  the  absence  of  his  mother-in-law, 
Mrs.  Bowes,"  and  a  passport  is  got  for  her,  her  man,  a 
maid,  and  **  three  horses,  whereof  two  shall  return,"  as 
well  as  liberty  to  take  all  her  own  money  with  her  into 
Scotland.  This  looks  like  a  definite  arrangement;  but 
whether  she  died  at  Edinburgh,  or  went  back  to  Eng- 
land yet  again,  1  cannot  find.  With  that  great  family  of 
hers,  unless  in  leaving  her  husband  she  had  quarrelled 
with  them  all,  there  must  have  been  frequent  occasion 
for  her  presence,  one  would  think.  Knox  at  least  sur- 
vived her;  and  we  possess  his  epigraph  to  their  long  in- 
timacy, given  to  the  world  by  him  in  an  appendix  to  his 
latest  publication.  1  have  said  in  a  former  paper  that 
Knox  was  not  shy  of  personal  revelations  in  his  pub- 
lished works.  And  the  trick  seems  to  have  grown  on 
him.  To  this  last  tract,  a  controversial  onslaught  on  a 
Scottish  Jesuit,  he  prefixed  a  prayer,  not  very  pertinent 
to  the  matter  in  hand,  and  containing  references  to  his 
family  which  were  the  occasion  of  some  wit  in  his  ad- 
versary's answer;  and  appended  what  seems  equally 
irrelevant,  one  of  his  devout  letters  to  Mrs.  Bowes,  with 

317 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

an  explanatory  preface.  To  say  truth,  I  believe  he  had 
always  felt  uneasily  that  the  circumstances  of  this  in- 
timacy were  very  capable  of  misconstruction ;  and  now, 
when  he  was  an  old  man,  taking  "his  good  night  of  all 
the  faithful  in  both  realms,"  and  only  desirous  **that 
without  any  notable  sclander  to  the  evangel  of  Jesus 
Christ,  he  might  end  his  battle;  for  as  the  world  was 
weary  of  him,  so  was  he  of  it ;  " —  in  such  a  spirit  it  was 
not,  perhaps,  unnatural  that  he  should  return  to  this  old 
story,  and  seek  to  put  it  right  in  the  eyes  of  all  men,  ere 
he  died.  "  Because  that  God,"  he  says,  '*  because  that 
God  now  in  His  mercy  hath  put  an  end  to  the  battle  of 
my  dear  mother,  Mistress  Elizabeth  Bowes,  before  that 
He  put  an  end  to  my  wretched  life,  I  could  not  cease 
but  declare  to  the  world  what  was  the  cause  of  our  great 
familiarity  and  long  acquaintance;  which  was  neither 
flesh  nor  blood,  but  a  troubled  conscience  upon  her  part, 
which  never  suffered  her  to  rest  but  when  she  was  in  the 
company  of  the  faithful,  of  whom  (from  the  first  hearing 
of  the  word  at  my  mouth)  she  judged  me  to  be  one.  . 
.  .  Her  company  to  me  was  comfortable  (yea,  hon- 
ourable and  profitable,  for  she  was  to  me  and  mine  a 
mother),  but  yet  it  was  not  without  some  cross ;  for  be- 
sides trouble  and  fashery  of  body  sustained  for  her,  my 
mind  was  seldom  quiet,  for  doing  somewhat  for  the 
comfort  of  her  troubled  conscience,  "i  He  had  written 
to  her  years  before,  from  his  first  exile  in  Dieppe,  that 
**  only  God's  hand  "  could  withhold  him  from  once  more 
speaking  with  her  face  to  face;  and  now,  when  God's 
hand  has  indeed  interposed,  when  there  lies  between 
them,  instead  of  the  voyageable  straits,  that  great  gulf 

1  Works,  vi.  513,  514. 
318 


JOHN   KNOX  AND  HIS  RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

over  which  no  man  can  pass,  this  is  the  spirit  in  which 
he  can  look  back  upon  their  long  acquaintance.  She 
was  a  religious  hypochondriac,  it  appears,  whom,  not 
without  some  cross  and  fashery  of  mind  and  body,  he 
-was  good  enough  to  tend.  He  might  have  given  a 
truer  character  of  their  friendship,  had  he  thought  less  of 
his  own  standing  in  public  estimation,  and  more  of  the 
dead  woman.  But  he  was  in  all  things,  as  Burke  said 
of  his  son  in  that  ever-memorable  passage,  a  public 
creature.  He  wished  that  even  into  this  private  place  of 
his  affections  posterity  should  follow  him  with  a  com- 
plete approval ;  and  he  was  willing,  in  order  that  this 
might  be  so,  to  exhibit  the  defects  of  his  lost  friend,  and 
tell  the  world  what  weariness  he  had  sustained  through 
her  unhappy  disposition.  There  is  something  here  that 
reminds  one  of  Rousseau. 

I  do  not  think  he  ever  saw  Mrs.  Locke  after  he  left 
Geneva ;  but  his  correspondence  with  her  continued  for 
three  years.  It  may  have  continued  longer,  of  course, 
but  1  think  the  last  letters  we  possess  read  like  the  last 
that  would  be  written.  Perhaps  Mrs.  Locke  was  then 
remarried,  for  there  is  much  obscurity  over  her  subse- 
quent history.  For  as  long  as  their  intimacy  was  kept 
up,  at  least,  the  human  element  remains  in  the  Reform- 
er's life.  Here  is  one  passage,  for  example,  the  most 
likable  utterance  of  Knox's  that  I  can  quote: — Mrs. 
Locke  has  been  upbraiding  him  as  a  bad  correspondent. 
**My  remembrance  of  you,"  he  answers,  "is  not  so 
dead,  but  1  trust  it  shall  be  fresh  enough,  albeit  it  be  re- 
newed by  no  outward  token  for  one  year.  Of  nature, 
I  am  churlish  ;  yet  one  thing  I  ashame  not  to  affirm,  that 
familiarity  once  thoroughly  contracted  was  never  yet 

319 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

broken  on  my  default.  The  cause  may  he  that  I  have 
rather  need  of  all,  than  that  any  have  need  of  me.  How- 
ever it  (that)  be,  it  cannot  be,  as  I  say,  the  corporal  ab- 
sence of  one  year  or  two  that  can  quench  in  my  heart 
that  familiar  acquaintance  in  Christ  Jesus,  which  half  a 
year  did  engender,  and  almost  two  years  did  nourish 
and  confirm.  And  therefore,  whether  1  write  or  no,  be 
assuredly  persuaded  that  1  have  you  in  such  memory  as 
becometh  the  faithful  to  have  of  the  faithful."  ^  This  is 
the  truest  touch  of  personal  humility  that  I  can  remem- 
ber to  have  seen  in  all  the  five  volumes  of  the  Reform- 
er's collected  works:  it  is  no  small  honour  to  Mrs.  Locke 
that  his  affection  for  her  should  have  brought  home  to 
him  this  unwonted  feeling  of  dependence  upon  others. 
Everything  else  in  the  course  of  the  correspondence  tes- 
tifies to  a  good,  sound,  downright  sort  of  friendship  be- 
tween the  two,  less  ecstatic  than  it  was  at  first,  perhaps, 
but  serviceable  and  very  equal.  He  gives  her  ample  de- 
tails as  to  the  progress  of  the  work  of  reformation ;  sends 
her  the  sheets  of  the  Confession  of  Faith,  "  in  quairs," 
as  he  calls  it;  asks  her  to  assist  him  with  her  prayers, 
to  collect  money  for  the  good  cause  in  Scotland,  and  to 
send  him  books  for  himself — books  by  Calvin  espe- 
cially, one  on  Isaiah,  and  a  new  revised  edition  of  the 
*'  Institutes."  "  1  must  be  bold  on  your  liberality,"  he 
writes,  "  not  only  in  that,  but  in  greater  things  as  I  shall 
need.  "2  On  her  part  she  applies  to  him  for  spiritual 
advice,  not  after  the  manner  of  the  drooping  Mrs.  Bowes, 
but  in  a  more  positive  spirit, —  advice  as  to  practical 
points,  advice  as  to  the  Church  of  England,  for  instance, 

1  Works,  vi.  ii. 

2  lb.  vi.  pp.  21,  101,108,  130. 

320 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO   WOMEN 

whose  ritual  he  condemns  as  a  "mingle-mangle."^ 
Just  at  the  end  she  ceases  to  write,  sends  him  **  a  token, 
without  writing."  **I  understand  your  impediment," 
he  answers,  **and  therefore  I  cannot  complain.  Yet  if 
you  understood  the  variety  of  my  temptations,  I  doubt 
not  but  you  would  have  written  somewhat.  "^  One 
letter  more,  and  then  silence. 

And  I  think  the  best  of  the  Reformer  died  out  with 
that  correspondence.  It  is  after  this,  of  course,  that  he 
wrote  that  ungenerous  description  of  his  intercourse 
with  Mrs.  Bowes.  It  is  after  this,  also,  that  we  come 
to  the  unlovely  episode  of  his  second  marriage.  He  had 
been  left  a  widower  at  the  age  of  fifty-five.  Three  years 
after,  it  occurred  apparently  to  yet  another  pious  parent 
to  sacrifice  a  child  upon  the  altar  of  his  respect  for  the 
Reformer.  In  January,  1563,  Randolph  writes  to  Cecil: 
''Your  Honour  will  take  it  for  a  great  wonder  when  I 
shall  write  unto  you  that  Mr.  Knox  shall  marry  a  very 
near  kinswoman  of  the  Duke's,  a  Lord's  daughter,  a 
young  lass  not  above  sixteen  years  of  age."  ^  He  adds 
that  he  fears  he  will  be  laughed  at  for  reporting  so  mad 
a  story.  And  yet  it  was  true ;  and  on  Palm  Sunday, 
1 564,  Margaret  Stewart,  daughter  of  Andrew  Lord  Stew- 
art of  Ochiltree,  aged  seventeen,  was  duly  united  to  John 
Knox,  Minister  of  St.  Giles's  Kirk,  Edinburgh,  aged  fifty- 
nine, —  to  the  great  disgust  of  Queen  Mary  from  family 
pride,  and  I  would  fain  hope  of  many  others  for  more 
humane  considerations.  *'In  this,"  as  Randolph  says, 
**I  wish  he  had  done  otherwise."  The  Consistory  of 
Geneva,  ''that  most  perfect  school  of  Christ  that  ever 
was  on  earth  since  the  days  of  the  Apostles,"  were  wont 

1  Works,  vi.  83.         ^  lb.  vi.  129.        3  /j.  yi.  532. 
321 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

to  forbid  marriages  on  the  ground  of  too  great  a  dispro- 
portion in  age.  I  cannot  help  wondering  whether  the 
old  Reformer's  conscience  did  not  uneasily  remind  him, 
now  and  again,  of  this  good  custom  of  his  religious  me- 
tropolis, as  he  thought  of  the  two-and-forty  years  that 
separated  him  from  his  poor  bride.  Fitly  enough,  we  hear 
nothing  of  the  second  Mrs.  Knox  until  she  appears  at 
her  husband's  deathbed,  eight  years  after.  She  bore 
him  three  daughters  in  the  interval ;  and  I  suppose  the 
poor  child's  martyrdom  was  made  as  easy  for  her  as 
might  be.  She  was  ** extremely  attentive  to  him"  at 
the  end,  we  read ;  and  he  seems  to  have  spoken  to  her 
with  some  confidence.  Moreover,  and  this  is  very  char- 
acteristic, he  had  copied  out  for  her  use  a  little  volume 
of  his  own  devotional  letters  to  other  women. 

This  is  the  end  of  the  roll,  unless  we  add  to  it  Mrs. 
Adamson,  who  had  delighted  much  in  his  company 
'*by  reason  that  she  had  a  troubled  conscience,"  and 
whose  deathbed  is  commemorated  at  some  length  in 
the  pages  of  his  history.^ 

And  now,  looking  back,  it  cannot  be  said  that  Knox's 
intercourse  with  women  was  quite  of  the  highest  sort. 
It  is  characteristic  that  we  find  him  more  alarmed  for 
his  own  reputation  than  for  the  reputation  of  the  women 
with  whom  he  was  familiar.  There  was  a  fatal  pre- 
ponderance of  self  in  all  his  intimacies:  many  women 
came  to  learn  from  him,  but  he  never  condescended  to 
become  a  learner  in  his  turn.  And  so  there  is  not  any- 
thing idyllic  in  these  intimacies  of  his;  and  they  were 
never  so  renovating  to  his  spirit  as  they  might  have 
been.     But  I  believe  they  were  good  enough  for  the 

1  Works,  i.  246. 
322 


JOHN    KNOX  AND.  HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

women.  I  fancy  the  women  knew  what  they  were 
about  when  so  many  of  them  followed  after  Knox.  It 
is  not  simply  because  a  man  is  always  fully  persuaded 
that  he  knows  the  right  from  the  wrong  and  sees  his 
way  plainly  through  the  maze  of  life,  great  qualities  as 
these  are,  that  people  will  love  and  follow  him,  and 
write  him  letters  full  of  their  "earnest  desire  for  him" 
when  he  is  absent.  It  is  not  over  a  man,  whose  one 
characteristic  is  grim  fixity  of  purpose,  that  the  hearts 
of  women  are  "incensed  and  kindled  with  a  special 
care,"  as  it  were  over  their  natural  children.  In  the 
strong  quiet  patience  of  all  his  letters  to  the  weariful 
Mrs.  Bowes,  we  may  perhaps  see  one  cause  of  the  fas- 
cination he  possessed  for  these  religious  women.  Here 
was  one  whom  you  could  besiege  all  the  year  round 
with  inconsistent  scruples  and  complaints;  you  might 
write  to  him  on  Thursday  that  you  were  so  elated 
it  was  plain  the  devil  was  deceiving  you,  and  again  on 
Friday  that  you  were  so  depressed  it  was  plain  God  had 
cast  you  ofiT forever;  and  he  would  read  all  this  patiently 
and  sympathetically,  and  give  you  an  answer  in  the 
most  reassuring  polysyllables,  and  all  divided  into  heads 
—  who  knows  ?  —  like  a  treatise  on  divinity.  And  then, 
those  easy  tears  of  his.  There  are  some  women  who 
like  to  see  men  crying;  and  here  was  this  great-voiced, 
bearded  man  of  God,  who  might  be  seen  beating  the 
solid  pulpit  every  Sunday,  and  casting  abroad  his  clam- 
orous denunciations  to  the  terror  of  all,  and  who  on  the 
Monday  would  sit  in  their  parlours  by  the  hour,  and 
weep  with  them  over  their  manifold  trials  and  tempta- 
tions. Nowadays,  he  would  have  to  drink  a  dish  of 
tea  with  all  these  penitents.     ...     It  sounds  a  little 

323 


FAMILIAR  STUDIES  OF  MEN   AND   BOOKS 

vulgar,  as  the  past  will  do,  if  we  look  into  it  too  closely. 
We  could  not  let  these  great  folk  of  old  into  our  draw- 
ing-rooms. Queen  Elizabeth  would  positively  not  be 
eligible  for  a  housemaid.  The  old  manners  and  the  old 
customs  go  sinking  from  grade  to  grade,  until,  if  some 
mighty  emperor  revisited  the  glimpses  of  the  moon,  he 
would  not  find  any  one  of  his  way  of  thinking,  any  one 
he  could  strike  hands  with  and  talk  to  freely  and  with- 
out offence,  save  perhaps  the  porter  at  the  end  of  the 
street,  or  the  fellow  with  his  elbows  out  who  loafs  all 
day  before  the  public-house.  So  that  this  little  note  of 
vulgarity  is  not  a  thing  to  be  dwelt  upon ;  it  is  to  be  put 
away  from  us,  as  we  recall  the  fashion  of  these  old  inti- 
macies; so  that  we  may  only  remember  Knox  as  one 
who  was  very  long-suffering  with  women,  kind  to 
them  in  his  own  way,  loving  them  in  his  own  way  — 
and  that  not  the  worst  way,  if  it  was  not  the  best  — 
and  once  at  least,  if  not  twice,  moved  to  his  heart  of 
hearts  by  a  woman,  and  giving  expression  to  the  yearn- 
ing he  had  for  her  society  in  words  that  none  of  us  need 
be  ashamed  to  borrow. 

And  let  us  bear  in  mind  always  that  the  period  I  have 
gone  over  in  this  essay  begins  when  the  Reformer  was 
already  beyond  the  middle  age,  and  already  broken  in 
bodily  health :  it  has  been  the  story  of  an  old  man's 
friendships.  This  it  is  that  makes  Knox  enviable.  Un- 
known until  past  forty,  he  had  then  before  him  five- 
and-thirty  years  of  splendid  and  influential  life,  passed 
through  uncommon  hardships  to  an  uncommon  degree 
of  power,  lived  in  his  own  country  as  a  sort  of  king, 
and  did  what  he  would  with  the  sound  of  his  voice  out 
of  the  pulpit.     And  besides  all  this,  such  a  following  of 

324 


JOHN   KNOX  AND   HIS   RELATIONS  TO  WOMEN 

faithful  women !  One  would  take  the  first  forty  years 
gladly,  if  one  could  be  sure  of  the  last  thirty.  Most  oi 
us,  even  if,  by  reason  of  great  strength  and  the  dignity 
of  grey  hairs,  we  retain  some  degree  of  public  respect 
in  the  latter  days  of  our  existence,  will  find  a  falling 
away  of  friends,  and  a  solitude  making  itself  round 
about  us  day  by  day,  until  we  are  left  alone  with  the 
hired  sick  nurse.  For  the  attraction  of  a  man's  charac- 
ter is  apt  to  be  outlived,  like  the  attraction  of  his  body ; 
and  the  power  to  love  grows  feeble  in  its  turn,  as  well 
as  the  power  to  inspire  love  in  others.  It  is  only  with 
a  few  rare  natures  that  friendship  is  added  to  friendship, 
love  to  love,  and  the  man  keeps  growing  richer  in  affec- 
tion —  richer,  I  mean,  as  a  bank  may  be  said  to  grow 
richer,  both  giving  and  receiving  more  —  after  his  head 
is  white  and  his  back  weary,  and  he  prepares  to  go 
down  into  the  dust  of  death. 


325 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

The  following  three  papers,  published  originally  in  Scribner's 
Magazine  in  1888,  are  added  for  convenience  to  this  volume.  They 
have  not  before  been  included  in  this  collection  of  essays. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

THE  scene  is  the  deck  of  an  Atlantic  liner,  close  by 
the  doors  of  the  ashpit,  where  it  is  warm:  the 
time,  night :  the  persons,  an  emigrant  of  an  inquiring 
turn  of  mind  and  a  deck  hand.  **  Now,"  says  the  emi- 
grant, **  is  there  not  any  book  that  gives  a  true  picture 
of  a  sailor's  life?" — *'Well,"  returns  the  other,  with 
great  deliberation  and  emphasis,  *' there  is  one ;  that  is 
just  a  sailor's  life.  You  know  all  about  it,  if  you  know 
that." —  **  What  do  you  call  it?"  asks  the  emigrant. — 
**They  call  it  Tom  Holt's  Log/"  says  the  sailor.  The 
emigrant  entered  the  fact  in  his  note-book:  with  a 
wondering  query  as  to  what  sort  of  stuff  this  Tom  Holt 
would  prove  to  be :  and  a  double-headed  prophecy  that 
it  would  prove  one  of  two  things :  either  a  solid,  dull, 
admirable  piece  of  truth,  or  mere  ink  and  banditti. 
Well,  the  emigrant  was  wrong:  it  was  something 
more  curious  than  either,  for  it  was  a  work  by  Stephens 
•Hayward. 

Copyright,  1888,  1895,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 


In  this  paper  I  propose  to  put  the  authors*  names  in 
capital  letters;  the  most  of  them  have  not  much  hope 
of  durable  renown;  their  day  is  past,  the  poor  dogs  — 
they  begin  swiftly  to  be  forgotten ;  and  Hayward  is  of 
the  number.  Yet  he  was  a  popular  writer;  and  what 
is  really  odd,  he  had  a  vein  of  hare-brained  merit. 
There  never  was  a  man  of  less  pretension ;  the  intoxi- 
cating presence  of  an  ink-bottle,  which  was  too  much 
for  the  strong  head  of  Napoleon,  left  him  sober  and 
light-hearted;  he  had  no  shade  of  literary  vanity;  he 
was  never  at  the  trouble  to  be  dull.  His  works  fell  out 
of  date  in  the  days  of  printing.  They  were  the  un- 
hatched  eggs  of  Arab  tales ;  made  for  word-of-mouth 
recitation,  certain  (if  thus  told)  to  captivate  an  audience 
of  boys  or  any  simple  people  —  certain,  on  the  lips  of  a 
generation  or  two  of  public  story-tellers,  to  take  on  new 
merit  and  become  cherished  lore.  Such  tales  as  a  man, 
such  rather  as  a  boy,  tells  himself  at  night,  not  without 
smiling,  as  he  drops  asleep;  such,  with  the  same  ex- 
hilarating range  of  incident  and  the  same  trifling  inge- 
nuities, with  no  more  truth  to  experience  and  scarcely 
more  cohesion,  Hayward  told.  If  we  so  consider  The- 
Diamond  Necklace  or  the  Twenty  Captains,  which  is 
what  I  remember  best  of  Hayward,  you  will  find  that 
staggering  narrative  grow  quite  conceivable. 

A  gentleman  (his  name  forgotten  —  Hayward  had  no 
taste  in  names)  puts  an  advertisement  in  the  papers, 
inviting  nineteen  other  gentlemen  to  join  him  in  a 
likely  enterprise.  The  nineteen  appear  promptly,  nine- 
teen, no  more,  no  less :  see  the  ease  of  the  recumbent 

33(> 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

Story-teller,  half-asleep,  hanging  on  the  verge  of  that 
country  of  dreams,  where  candles  come  alight  and 
journeys  are  accomplished  at  the  wishing!  These 
twenty,  all  total  strangers,  are  to  put  their  money  to- 
gether and  form  an  association  of  strict  equality :  hence 
its  name —  The  Twenty  Captains.  And  it  is  no  doubt 
very  pleasant  to  be  equal  to  anybody,  even  in  name; 
and  mighty  desirable  (at  least  in  the  eyes  of  young 
gentlemen  hearing  this  tale  in  the  school  dormitory) 
to  be  called  captain,  even  in  private.  But  the  deuce  of 
it  is,  the  founder  has  no  enterprise  in  view,  and  here 
you  would  think,  the  least  wary  capitalist  would  leave 
his  chair,  and  buy  a  broom  and  a  crossing  with  his 
money,  rather  than  place  it  in  the  hands  of  this  total 
stranger,  whose  mind  by  his  own  confession  was  a 
blank,  and  whose  real  name  was  probably  Macaire. 
No  such  matter  in  the  book.  With  the  ease  of  dream- 
ing, the  association  is  founded ;  and  again  with  the  ease 
of  dreaming  (Hay ward  being  now  three  parts  asleep) 
the  enterprise,  in  the  shape  of  a  persecuted  heiress  and 
a  truly  damnable  and  idiotic  aristocrat,  appears  upon 
the  scene.  For  some  time,  our  drowsy  story-teller 
dodges  along  upon  the  frontiers  of  incoherence,  hardly 
at  the  trouble  to  invent,  never  at  the  trouble  to  write 
literature;  but  suddenly  his  interest  brightens  up,  he 
sees  something  in  front  of  him,  turns  on  the  pillow, 
shakes  off  the  tentacles  of  slumber,  and  puts  his  back 
into  his  tale.  Injured  innocence  takes  a  special  train  to 
Dover;  damnable  idiot  takes  another  and  pursues;  the 
twenty  captains  reach  the  station  five  minutes  after,  and 
demand  a  third.  It  is  against  the  rules,  they  are  told; 
not  more  than  two  specials  (here  is  good  news  for  the 

33i 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

railway  traveller)  are  allowed  at  the  same  time  upon 
the  line.  Is  injured  innocence,  with  her  diamond  neck- 
lace, to  lie  at  the  mercy  of  an  aristocrat  ?  Forbid  it, 
Heaven  and  the  Cheap  Press!  The  twenty  captains 
slip  unobserved  into  the  engine-house,  steal  an  engine, 
and  forth  upon  the  Dover  line !  As  well  as  I  can  gather, 
there  were  no  stations  and  no  pointsmen  on  this  route 
to  Dover,  which  must  in  consequence  be  quick  and 
safe.  One  thing  it  had  in  common  with  other  and  less 
simple  railways,  it  had  a  line  of  telegraph  wires;  and 
these  the  twenty  captains  decided  to  destroy.  One  of 
them,  you  will  not  be  surprised  to  learn,  had  a  coil  of 
rope  —  in  his  pocket,  I  suppose;  another  —  again  I  shall 
not  surprise  you  —  was  an  Irishman  and  given  to  blun- 
dering. One  end  of  the  line  was  made  fast  to  a  telegraph 
post;  one  (by  the  Irishman) to  the  engine:  all  aboard  — 
full  steam  ahead  —  a  double  crash,  and  there  was  the 
telegraph  post  upon  the  ground,  and  here  —  mark  my 
Hayward!  was  something  carried  away  upon  the  en- 
gine. All  eyes  turn  to  see  what  it  is :  an  integral  part 
of  the  machinery!  There  is  now  no  means  of  reducing 
speed ;  on  thunders  the  engine,  full  steam  ahead,  down 
this  remarkable  route  to  Dover;  on  speed  the  twenty 
captains,  not  very  easy  in  their  minds.  Presently,  the 
driver  of  the  second  special  (the  aristocrat's)  looks  be- 
hind him,  sees  an  engine  on  his  track,  signals,  signals  in 
vain,  finds  himself  being  overhauled,  pokes  up  his  fire 
and  —  full  steam  ahead  in  flight.  Presently  after,  the 
driver  of  the  first  special  (injured  innocence's)  looks  be- 
hind, sees  a  special  on  his  track  and  an  engine  on  the 
track  of  the  special,  signals,  signals  in  vain,  and  he  too 
—  full  steam  ahead  in  flight.     Such  a  day  on  the  Dover 

333 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

line!  But  at  last  the  second  special  smashes  into  the 
first,  and  the  engine  into  both ;  and  for  my  part,  I  think 
there  was  an  end  of  that  romance.  But  Hayward  was 
by  this  time  fast  asleep:  not  a  life  was  lost;  nor  only 
that,  but  the  various  parties  recovered  consciousness 
and  resumed  their  wild  career  (only  now,  of  course,  on 
foot  and  across  country)  in  the  precise  original  order: 
injured  innocence  leading  by  a  length,  damnable  aristo- 
crat with  still  more  damnable  valet  (like  one  man)  a 
good  second,  and  the  twenty  captains  (again  like  one 
man)  a  bad  third ;  so  that  here  was  the  story  going  on 
again  just  as  before,  and  this  appalling  catastrophe  on 
the  Dover  line  reduced  to  the  proportions  of  a  morning 
call.  The  feelings  of  the  company  (it  is  true)  are  not 
dwelt  upon. 

Now,  I  do  not  mean  that  Tom  Holt  is  quite  such 
high-flying  folly  as  The  Twenty  Captains  ;  for  it  is  no 
such  thing,  nor  half  so  entertaining.  Still  it  flowed  from 
the  same  irresponsible  brain;  still  it  was  the  mere 
drowsy  divagation  of  a  man  in  bed,  now  tedious,  now 
extravagant  —  always  acutely  untrue  to  life  as  it  is,  of- 
ten pleasantly  coincident  with  childish  hopes  of  what 
life  ought  to  be  —  as  (for  instance)  in  the  matter  of  that 
little  pleasure-boat,  rigged,  to  every  block  and  rope,  as 
a  full-rigged  ship,  in  which  Tom  goes  sailing  —  happy 
child !  And  this  was  the  work  that  an  actual  tarry  sea- 
man recommended  for  a  picture  of  his  own  existence  1 


It  was  once  my  fortune  to  have  an  interview  with 
Mr.  Hayward*s  publisher :  a  very  affable  gentleman  in  a 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

very  small  office  in  a  shady  court  off  Fleet  Street.  We 
had  some  talk  together  of  the  works  he  issued  and  the 
authors  who  supplied  them ;  and  it  was  strange  to  hear 
him  talk  for  all  the  world  as  one  of  our  publishers  might 
have  talked  of  one  of  us,  only  with  a  more  obliging 
frankness,  so  that  the  private  life  of  these  great  men  was 
more  or  less  unveiled  to  me.  So  and  so  (he  told  me, 
among  other  things)  had  demanded  an  advance  upon  a 
novel,  had  laid  out  the  sum  (apparently  on  spirituous 
drinks)  and  refused  to  finish  the  work.  "We  had  to 
put  it  in  the  hands  of  Bracebridge  Hemming,"  said  the 
publisher  with  a  chuckle:  "  he  finished  it."  And  then 
with  conviction :  **  A  most  reliable  author,  Bracebridge 
Hemming."  I  have  no  doubt  the  name  is  new  to  the 
reader;  it  was  not  so  to  me.  Among  these  great  men 
of  the  dust,  there  is  a  touching  ambition  which  punishes 
itself;  not  content  with  such  glory  as  comes  to  them, 
they  long  for  the  glory  of  being  bound  —  long  to  invade, 
between  six  boards,  the  homes  of  that  aristocracy  whose 
manners  they  so  often  find  occasion  to  expose;  and 
sometimes  (once  in  a  long  lifetime)  the  gods  give  them 
this  also,  and  they  appear  in  the  orthodox  three  volumes, 
and  are  fleered  at  in  the  critical  press,  and  lie  quite  unread 
in  circulating  libraries.  One  such  work  came  in  my  mind : 
The  Bondage  of  Brandon,  by  Bracebridge  Hemming. 
I  had  not  found  much  pleasure  in  the  volumes;  but  I  was 
the  more  glad  to  think  that  Mr.  Hemming's  name  was 
quite  a  household  word,  and  himself  quoted  for  *'  a  re- 
liable author,"  in  his  own  literary  circles. 

On  my  way  westward  from  this  interview,  I  was 
aware  of  a  first  floor  in  Fleet  Street  rigged  up  with 
wire  window-blinds,  brass  straps,  and  gilt  lettering: 

334 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

Office  for  the  sale  of  the  works  of  Pierce  Egan.  *'  Ay, 
Mr.  Egan,"  thought  I,  ''and  have  you  an  office  all  to 
yourself  !  "  And  then  remembered  that  he  too  had  once 
revelled  in  three  volumes :  The  Flower  of  the  Flock  the 
book  was  called,  not  without  pathos  for  the  consid- 
erate mind ;  but  even  the  flower  of  Egan's  flock  was  not 
good  enough  for  the  critics  or  the  circulating  libraries, 
so  that  I  purchased  my  own  copy,  quite  unread,  for 
three  shillings  at  a  railway  bookstall.  Poor  dogs,  I 
thought,  what  ails  you,  that  you  should  have  the  de- 
sire of  this  fictitious  upper  popularity,  made  by  hack 
journalists  and  countersigned  by  yawning  girls  }  Yours 
is  the  more  true.  Your  butcher,  the  landlady  at  your 
seaside  lodgings  —  if  you  can  afford  that  indulgence,  the 
barmaid  whom  you  doubtless  court,  even  the  Rates  and 
Taxes  that  besiege  your  door,  have  actually  read  your 
tales  and  actually  know  your  names.  There  was  a 
waiter  once  (or  so  the  story  goes)  who  knew  not  the 
name  of  Tennyson:  that  of  Hemming  perhaps  had 
brought  the  light  into  his  eyes,  or  Viles  perhaps,  or 
Errym,  or  the  great  J.  F.  Smith,  or  the  unutterable  Rey- 
nolds, to  whom  even  here  I  must  deny  his  capitals.  — 
Fancy,  if  you  can  (thought  I),  that  I  languish  under  the 
reverse  of  your  complaint;  and  being  an  upper-class 
author,  bound  and  criticised,  long  for  the  penny  number 
and  the  weekly  woodcut! 

Well,  I  know  that  glory  now.  I  have  tried  and  on  the 
whole  I  have  failed:  just  as  Egan  and  Hemming  failed 
in  the  circulating  libraries.  It  is  my  consolation  that 
Charles  Reade  nearly  wrecked  that  valuable  property  the 
London  Journal,  which  must  instantly  fall  back  on  Mr. 
Egan ;  and  the  king  of  us  all,  George  Meredith,  once 

335 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

Staggered  the  circulation  of  a  weekly  newspaper.  A 
servant-maid  used  to  come  and  boast  when  she  had  read 
another  chapter  of  Treasure  Island:  that  any  pleasure 
should  attend  the  exercise  never  crossed  her  thoughts. 
The  same  tale,  in  a  penny  paper  of  a  high  class,  was 
mighty  coldly  looked  upon ;  by  the  delicate  test  of  the  cor- 
respondence column,  I  could  see  I  was  far  to  leeward ; 
and  there  was  one  giant  on  the  stafif(a  man  with  some  tal- 
ent, when  he  chose  to  use  it)  with  whom  I  very  early 
perceived  it  was  in  vain  to  rival.  Yet  I  was  thought 
well  of  on  my  penny  paper  for  two  reasons :  one  that 
the  publisher  was  bent  on  raising  the  standard  —  a  dif- 
ficult enterprise  in  which  he  has  to  a  great  extent  suc- 
ceeded; the  other,  because  (like  Bracebridge  Hemming) 
I  was  "a  reliable  author."  For  our  great  men  of  the 
dust  are  apt  to  be  behind  with  copy. 


Ill 

How  I  came  to  be  such  a  student  of  our  penny  press, 
demands  perhaps  some  explanation.  I  was  brought  up 
on  Cassell's  Family  Paper  ;  but  the  lady  who  was  kind 
enough  to  read  the  tales  aloud  to  me  was  subject  to 
sharp  attacks  of  conscience.  She  took  the  Family  Pa- 
per on  confidence ;  the  tales  it  contained  being  Family 
Tales,  not  novels.  But  every  now  and  then,  something 
would  occur  to  alarm  her  finer  sense;  she  would  express 
a  well-grounded  fear  that  the  current  fiction  was  *' going 
to  turn  out  a  Regular  Novel;"  and  the  family  paper, 
with  my  pious  approval,  would  be  dropped.  Yet  neither 
she  nor  I  were  wholly  stoical;  and  when  Saturday  came 
round,  we  would  study  the  windows  of  the  stationer 

i36 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

and  try  to  fish  out  of  subsequent  woodcuts  and  their 
legends  the  further  adventures  of  our  favourites.  Many 
points  are  here  suggested  for  the  casuist;  definitions  of 
the  Regular  Novel  and  the  Family  Tale  are  to  be  de- 
sired ;  and  quite  a  paper  might  be  written  on  the  rela- 
tive merit  of  reading  a  fiction  outright  and  lusting  after 
it  at  the  stationer's  window.  The  experience  at  least 
had  a  great  effect  upon  my  childhood.  This  inexpen- 
sive pleasure  mastered  m.e.  Each  new  Saturday  1  would 
go  from  one  newsvender's  window  to  another's,  till  1 
was  master  of  the  weekly  gallery  and  had  thoroughly 
digested  "The  Baronet  Unmasked,"  ''So  and  so  ap- 
proaching the  Mysterious  House,"  "The  Discovery  of 
the  Dead  Body  in  the  Blue  Marl  Pit,"  "Dr.  Vargas  Re- 
moving the  Senseless  Body  of  Fair  Lilias,"  and  what- 
ever other  snatch  of  unknown  story  and  glimpse  of  un- 
known characters  that  gallery  afforded.  1  do  not  know 
that  I  ever  enjoyed  fiction  more;  those  books  that  we 
have  (in  such  a  way)  avoided  reading,  are  all  so  excel- 
lently written !  And  in  early  years,  we  take  a  book  for 
its  material,  and  act  as  our  own  artists,  keenly  realising 
that  which  pleases  us,  leaving  the  rest  aside.  I  never 
supposed  that  a  book  was  to  command  me  until,  one 
disastrous  day  of  storm,  the  heaven  full  of  turbulent  va- 
pours, the  streets  full  of  the  squalling  of  the  gale,  the 
windows  resounding  under  bucketfuls  of  rain,  my 
mother  read  aloud  to  me  Macbeth.  I  cannot  say  I 
thought  the  experience  agreeable;  I  far  preferred  the 
ditch-water  stories  that  a  child  could  dip  and  skip  and 
doze  over,  stealing  at  times  materials  for  play ;  it  was 
something  new  and  shocking  to  be  thus  ravished  by  a 
giant,  and  I  shrank  under  the  brutal  grasp.     But  the 

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MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

Spot  in  memory  is  still  sensitive;  nor  do  I  ever  read 
that  tragedy  but  I  hear  the  gale  howling  up  the  valley  of 
the  Leith. 

All  this  while,  I  would  never  buy  upon  my  own  ac- 
count; pence  were  scarce,  conscience  busy;  and  1  would 
study  the  pictures  and  dip  into  the  exposed  columns, 
but  not  buy.  My  fall  was  brought  about  by  a  truly  ro- 
mantic incident.  Perhaps  the  reader  knows  Neidpath 
Castle,  where  it  stands,  bosomed  in  hills,  on  a  green 
promontory;  Tweed  at  its  base  running  through  all  the 
gamut  of  a  busy  river,  from  the  pouring  shallow  to  the 
brown  pool.  In  the  days  when  I  was  thereabout,  and 
that  part  of  the  earth  was  made  a  heaven  to  me  by  many 
things  now  lost,  by  boats,  and  bathing,  and  the  fascina- 
tion of  streams,  and  the  delights  of  comradeship,  and 
those  (surely  the  prettiest  and  simplest)  of  a  boy  and  a  girl 
romance — in  those  days  of  Arcady  there  dwelt  in  the 
upper  story  of  the  castle  one  whom  I  believe  to  have 
been  gamekeeper  on  the  estate.  The  rest  of  the  place 
stood  open  to  incursive  urchins ;  and  there,  in  a  deserted 
chamber,  we  found  some  half-a-dozen  numbers  of  Black 
Bess,  or  the  Knight  of  the  Road,  a  work  by  Edward 
ViLES.  So  far  as  we  were  aware,  no  one  had  visited  that 
chamber  (which  was  in  a  turret)  since  Lambert  blew  in 
the  doors  of  the  fortress  with  contumelious  English  can- 
non. Yet  it  could  hardly  have  been  Lambert  (in  what- 
ever hurry  of  military  operations)  who  had  left  these 
samples  of  romance;  and  the  idea  that  the  gamekeeper 
had  anything  to  do  with  them  was  one  that  we  dis- 
couraged. Well,  the  offence  is  now  covered  by  pre- 
scription; we  took  them  away;  and  in  the  shade  of  a 
contiguous  fir-wood,  lying  on  blaeberries.  I  made  my 

338 


e 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

first  acquaintance  with  the  art  of  Mr.  Viles.  From  this 
author,  I  passed  on  to  Malcolm  J.  Errym  (the  name  to 
my  present  scrutiny,  suggesting  an  anagram  on  Merry), 
author  of  Edith  the  Captive,  The  Treasures  of  St.  Mark, 
A  Mystery  in  Scarlet,  George  Barington,  Sea-drift, 
Townsend  the  Runner,  and  a  variety  of  other  well- 
named  romances.  Memory  may  play  me  false,  but  I 
believe  there  was  a  kind  of  merit  about  Errym.  The 
Mystery  in  Scarlet  runs  in  my  mind  to  this  day ;  and  if 
any  hunter  after  autographs  (and  I  think  the  world  is 
full  of  such)  can  lay  his  hands  on  a  copy  even  imperfect, 
and  will  send  it  to  me  in  the  care  of  Messrs.  Scribner, 
my  gratitude  (the  muse  consenting)  will  even  drop  into 
poetry.  For  I  have  a  curiosity  to  know  what  the  Mys- 
tery in  Scarlet  was,  and  to  renew  acquaintance  with 
King  George  and  his  valet  Norris,  who  were  the  chief 
figures  in  the  work  and  may  be  said  to  have  risen  in 
every  page  superior  to  history  and  the  ten  command- 
ments. Hence  I  passed  on  to  Mr.  Egan,  whom  I  trust 
the  reader  does  not  confuse  with  the  author  of  Tom  and 
Jerry  ;  the  two  are  quite  distinct,  though  I  have  some- 
times suspected  they  v/ere  father  and  son.  I  never  en- 
joyed Egan  as  I  did  Errym;  but  this  was  possibly  a 
want  of  taste,  and  Egan  would  do.  Thence  again  I  was 
suddenly  brought  face  to  face  '^  >..h  Mr.  Reynolds.  A 
school-fellow,  acquainted  with  ny  debasing  tastes,  sup- 
plied me  with  The  Mysteries  of  London,  and  I  fell  back 
revolted.  The  same  school-fellow  (who  seems  to  have 
been  a  devil  of  a  fellow)  supplied  me  about  the  same 
time  with  one  of  those  contributions  to  literature  (and 
even  to  art)  from  which  the  name  of  the  publisher  is 
modestly  withheld.     It  was  a  far  more  respectable  work 

339 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

than  The  Mysteries  of  London.  J.  F.  Smith  when  I  was 
a  child,  Errym  when  I  was  a  boy,  Hayward  when  I 
had  attained  to  man's  estate,  these  I  read  for  pleasure ; 
the  others,  down  to  Sylvanus  Cobb,  I  have  made  it  my 
business  to  know  (as  far  as  my  endurance  would  sup- 
port me)  from  a  sincere  interest  in  human  nature  and 
the  art  of  letters. 

IV 

What  kind  of  talent  is  required  to  please  this  mighty 
public  ?  that  was  my  first  question,  and  was  soon 
amended  with  the  words,  "if  any."  J.  F.  Smith  was  a 
man  of  undeniable  talent,  Errym  and  Hayward  have  a 
certain  spirit,  and  even  in  Egan  the  very  tender  might 
recognise  the  rudiments  of  a  sort  of  literary  gift ;  but  the 
cases  on  the  other  side  are  quite  conclusive.  Take  Hem- 
ming, or  the  dull  ruffian  Reynolds,  or  Sylvanus  Cobb, 
of  whom  perhaps  1  have  only  seen  unfortunate  examples 
— they  seem  not  to  have  the  talents  of  a  rabbit,  and  why 
anyone  should  read  them  is  a  thing  that  passes  wonder. 
A  plain-spoken  and  possibly  high-thinking  critic  might 
here  perhaps  return  upon  me  with  my  own  expressions. 
And  he  would  have  missed  the  point.  For  1  and  my 
fellows  have  no  such  popularity  to  be  accounted  for. 
The  reputation  of  an  upper-class  author  is  made  for  him 
at  dinner-tables  and  nursed  in  newspaper  paragraphs, 
and  when  all  is  done,  amounts  to  no  great  matter.  We 
call  it  popularity,  surely  in  a  pleasant  error.  A  flippant 
writer  in  the  Saturday  Review  expressed  a  doubt  if  I  had 
ever  cherished  a  "genteel"  illusion;  in  truth  I  never 
had  many,  but  this  was  one  —  and  I  have  lost  it.  Once 
I  took  the  literary  author  at  his  own  esteem ;  I  behold 

340 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

him  now  like  one  of  those  gentlemen  who  read  their 
own  MS.  descriptive  poetry  aloud  to  wife  and  babes 
around  the  evening  hearth ;  addressing  a  mere  parlour 
coterie  and  quite  unknown  to  the  great  world  outside 
the  villa  windows.  At  such  pigmy  reputation,  Reynolds, 
or  Cobb,  or  Mrs.  Southworth  can  afford  to  smile.  By 
spontaneous  public  vote,  at  a  cry  from  the  unorganic 
masses,  these  great  ones  of  the  dust  were  laurelled. 
And  for  what  ? 

Ay,  there  is  the  question:  For  what?  How  is  this 
great  honour  gained?  Many  things  have  been  sug- 
gested. The  people  (it  has  been  said)  like  rapid  narra- 
tive. If  so,  the  taste  is  recent,  for  both  Smith  and  Egan 
were  leisurely  writers.  It  has  been  said  they  like  inci- 
dent, not  character.  I  am  not  so  sure.  G.  P.  R.  James 
was  an  upper-class  author,  J.  F.  Smith  a  penny-press- 
man; the  two  are  in  some  ways  not  unlike;  but  —  here 
is  the  curiosity — James  made  far  the  better  story.  Smith 
was  far  the  more  successful  with  his  characters.  Each 
(to  bring  the  parallel  home)  wrote  a  novel  called  The 
Stepmother ;  each  introduced  a  pair  of  old  maids;  and 
let  anyone  study  the  result!  James's  Stepmother  is  a 
capital  tale,  but  Smith's  old  maids  are  like  Trollope  at 
his  best.  It  is  said  again  that  the  people  like  crime. 
Certainly  they  do.  But  the  great  ones  of  the  dust  have 
no  monopoly  of  that,  and  their  less  fortunate  rivals 
hammer  away  at  murder  and  abduction  unapplauded. 

I  return  to  linger  about  my  seaman  on  the  Atlantic 
liner.  I  shall  be  told  he  is  exceptional.  I  am  tempted 
to  think,  on  the  other  hand,  that  he  may  be  normal. 
The  critical  attitude,  whether  to  books  or  life  —  how  if 
that  were  the  true  exception  ?    How  if  Tom  Holt's  Log, 

34» 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

surreptitiously  perused  by  a  harbour-side,  had  been  the 
means  of  sending  my  mariner  to  sea  ?  How  if  he  were 
still  unconsciously  expecting  the  Tom  Holt  part  of  the 
business  to  begin  —  perhaps  to-morrow  ?  How,  even, 
if  he  had  never  yet  awakened  to  the  discrepancy  be- 
tween that  singular  picture  and  the  facts  ?  Let  us  take 
another  instance.  The  Young  Ladies'  Journal  is  an  ele- 
gant miscellany  which  I  have  frequently  observed  in  the 
possession  of  the  barmaid.  In  a  lone  house  on  a  moor- 
land, 1  was  once  supplied  with  quite  a  considerable  file 
of  this  production  and  (the  weather  being  violent)  de- 
voutly read  it.  The  tales  were  not  ill  done ;  they  were 
well  abreast  of  the  average  tale  in  a  circulating  library; 
there  was  only  one  difference,  only  one  thing  to  remind 
me  1  was  in  the  land  of  penny  numbers  instead  of  the 
parish  of  three  volumes  :  Disguise  it  as  the  authors 
pleased  (and  they  showed  ingenuity  in  doing  so)  it  was 
always  the  same  tale  they  must  relate:  the  tale  of  a  poor 
girl  ultimately  married  to  a  peer  of  the  realm  or  (at  the 
worst)  a  baronet.  The  circumstance  is  not  common  in 
life ;  but  how  familiar  to  the  musings  of  the  barmaid ! 
The  tales  were  not  true  to  what  men  see;  they  were 
true  to  what  the  readers  dreamed. 

Let  us  try  to  remember  how  fancy  works  in  children; 
with  what  selective  partiality  it  reads,  leaving  often  the 
bulk  of  the  book  unrealised,  but  fixing  on  the  rest  and 
living  it;  and  what  a  passionate  impotence  it  shows  — 
what  power  of  adoption,  what  weakness  to  create.  It 
seems  to  be  not  much  otherwise  with  uneducated  read- 
ers. They  long,  not  to  enter  into  the  lives  of  others, 
but  to  behold  themselves  in  changed  situations,  ardently 
but  impotently  preconceived.     The  imagination  (save 

34a 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

the  mark!)  of  the  popular  author  here  comes  to  the  res- 
cue, supplies  some  body  of  circumstance  to  these  phan- 
tom aspirations,  and  conducts  the  readers  where  they 
will.  Where  they  will:  that  is  the  point;  elsewhere 
they  will  not  follow.  When  I  was  a  child,  if  I  came  on 
a  book  in  which  the  characters  wore  armour,  it  fell  from 
my  hand ;  I  had  no  criterion  of  merit,  simply  that  one 
decisive  taste,  that  my  fancy  refused  to  linger  in  the  mid- 
dle ages.  And  the  mind  of  the  uneducated  reader  is 
mailed  with  similar  restrictions.  So  it  is  that  we  must 
account  for  a  thing  otherwise  unaccountable;  the  pop- 
ularity of  some  of  these  great  ones  of  the  dust.  In  de- 
fect of  any  other  gift,  they  have  instinctive  sympathy 
with  the  popular  mind.  They  can  thus  supply  to  the 
shop-girl  and  the  shoe-black  vesture  cut  to  the  pattern 
of  their  naked  fancies,  and  furnish  them  with  welcome 
scenery  and  properties  for  autobiographical  romancing. 
Even  in  readers  of  an  upper  class,  we  may  perceive 
the  traces  of  a  similar  hesitation ;  even  for  them,  a  writer 
may  be  too  exotic.  The  villain,  even  the  heroine,  may 
be  a  Feejee  islander,  but  only  on  condition  the  hero  is 
one  of  ourselves.  It  is  pretty  to  see  the  thing  reversed 
in  the  Arabian  tale  (Torrens  or  Burton — the  tale  is  omit- 
ted in  popular  editions)  where  the  Moslem  hero  carries 
off  the  Christian  amazon;  and  in  the  exogamous  ro- 
mance, there  lies  interred  a  good  deal  of  human  history 
and  human  nature.  But  the  question  of  exogamy  is 
foreign  to  the  purpose.  Enough  that  we  are  not  readily 
pleased  without  a  character  of  our  own  race  and  lan- 
guage; so  that,  when  the  scene  of  a  romance  is  laid  on 
any  distant  soil,  we  look  with  eagerness  and  confidence 
for  the  coming  of  the  English  traveller.    With  the  read- 

343 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

ers  of  the  penny-press,  the  thing  goes  further.  Burning 
as  they  are  to  penetrate  into  the  homes  of  the  peerage, 
they  must  still  be  conducted  there  by  some  character  of 
their  own  class,  into  whose  person  they  cheerfully  mi- 
grate for  the  time  of  reading.  Hence  the  poor  govern- 
esses supplied  in  the  Young  Ladies'  Journal.  Hence 
these  dreary  virtuous  ouvriers  and  ouvrieres  of  Xavier 
de  Montepin.  He  can  do  nothing  with  them;  and  he 
is  far  too  clever  not  to  be  aware  of  that.  When  he 
writes  for  the  Figaro,  he  discards  these  venerable  pup- 
pets and  doubtless  glories  in  their  absence;  but  so  soon 
as  he  must  address  the  great  audience  of  the  half-penny 
journal,  out  come  the  puppets,  and  are  furbished  up, 
and  take  to  drink  again,  and  are  once  more  reclaimed, 
and  once  more  falsely  accused.  See  them  for  what  they 
are — Montepin's  decoys;  without  these  he  could  not 
make  his  public  feel  at  home  in  the  houses  of  the  fraud- 
ulent bankers  and  the  wicked  dukes. 

The  reader,  it  has  been  said,  migrates  into  such  char- 
acters for  the  time  of  reading;  under  their  name  escapes 
the  narrow  prison  of  the  individual  career,  and  sates  his 
avidity  for  other  lives.  To  what  extent  he  ever  emi- 
grates again,  and  how  far  the  fancied  careers  react  upon 
the  true  one,  it  would  fill  another  paper  to  debate.  But 
the  case  of  my  sailor  shows  their  grave  importance. 
"Tom  Holt  does  not  apply  to  me,"  thinks  our  dully- 
imaginative  boy  by  the  harbour-side,  **for  1  am  not  a 
sailor.  But  if  I  go  to  sea  it  will  apply  completely." 
And  he  does  go  to  sea.  He  lives  surrounded  by  the 
fact,  and  does  not  observe  it.  He  cannot  realise,  he  can- 
not make  a  tale  of  his  own  life;  which  crumbles  in  dis- 
crete impressions  even  as  he  lives  it,  and  slips  between 

344 


POPULAR  AUTHORS 

the  fingers  of  his  memory  like  sand.  It  is  not  this  that 
he  considers  in  his  rare  hours  of  rumination,  but  that  other 
life,  which  was  all  lit  up  for  him  by  the  humble  talent 
of  a  Hay  ward  —  that  other  life  which,  God  knows,  per- 
haps he  still  believes  that  he  is  leading  —  the  life  of  Tom 
Holt. 


345 


GENTLEMEN 


WHAT  do  we  mean  to-day  by  that  common  phrase, 
a  gentleman  ?  By  the  lights  of  history,  from 
gens,  gentilis,  it  should  mean  a  man  of  family,  "one  of 
a  kent  house,"  one  of  notable  descent:  thus  embodying 
an  ancient  stupid  belief  and  implying  a  modern  scientific 
theory.  The  ancient  and  stupid  belief  came  to  the 
ground,  with  a  prodigious  dust  and  the  collapse  of  sev- 
eral polities,  in  the  latter  half  of  the  last  century.  There 
followed  upon  this  an  interregnum,  during  which  it 
was  believed  that  all  men  were  born  ''free  and  equal," 
and  that  it  really  did  not  matter  who  your  father  was. 
Man  has  always  been  nobly  irrational,  bandaging  his 
eyes  against  the  facts  of  life,  feeding  himself  on  the  wind 
of  ambitious  falsehood,  counting  his  stock  to  be  the 
children  of  the  gods;  and  yet  perhaps  he  never  showed 
in  a  more  touching  light  than  when  he  embraced  this 
boyish  theory.  Freedom  we  now  know  for  a  thing  in- 
compatible with  corporate  life  and  a  blessing  probably 
peculiar  to  the  solitary  robber;  we  know  besides  that 
every  advance  in  richness  of  existence,  whether  moral 
or  material,  is  paid  for  by  a  loss  of  liberty ;  that  liberty 
is  man's  coin  in  which  he  pays  his  way;  that  luxury 
and  knowledge  and  virtue,  and  love  and  the  family 

Copyright,  1888,  189s,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


GENTLEMEN 

affections,  are  all  so  many  fresh  fetters  on  the  naked 
and  solitary  freeman.  And  the  ancient  stupid  belief 
having  come  to  the  ground  and  the  dust  of  its  fall  sub- 
sided, behold  the  modern  scientific  theory  beginning  to 
rise  very  nearly  on  the  old  foundation;  and  individuals 
no  longer  (as  was  fondly  imagined)  springing  into  life 
from  God  knows  where,  incalculable,  untrammelled, 
abstract,  equal  to  one  another — but  issuing  modestly 
from  a  race;  with  virtues  and  vices,  fortitudes  and  frail- 
ties, ready  made ;  the  slaves  of  their  inheritance  of  blood ; 
eternally  unequal.  So  that  we  in  the  present,  and  yet 
more  our  scientific  descendants  in  the  future,  must  use, 
when  we  desire  to  praise  a  character,  the  old  expression, 
gentleman,  in  nearly  the  old  sense:  one  of  a  happy  strain 
of  blood,  one  fortunate  in  descent  from  brave  and  self- 
respecting  ancestors,  whether  clowns  or  counts. 

And  yet  plainly  this  is  of  but  little  help.  The  intri- 
cacy of  descent  defies  prediction ;  so  that  even  the  heir 
of  a  hundred  sovereigns  may  be  born  a  brute  or  a  vul- 
garian. We  may  be  told  that  a  picture  is  an  heirloom ; 
that  does  not  tell  us  what  the  picture  represents.  All 
qualities  are  inherited,  and  all  characters ;  but  which  are 
the  qualities  that  belong  to  the  gentleman  ?  what  is  the 
character  that  earns  and  deserves  that  honorable  style  ? 


The  current  ideas  vary  with  every  class,  and  need 
scarce  be  combated,  need  scarce  be  mentioned  save  for 
the  love  of  fun.  In  one  class,  and  not  long  ago,  he 
was  regarded  as  a  gentleman  who  kept  a  gig.  He 
is  a  gentleman  in  one  house  who  does  not  eat  peas 

M7 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

with  his  knife;  in  another,  who  is  not  to  be  discoun- 
tenanced by  any  created  form  of  butler.  In  my  own 
case  I  have  learned  to  move  among  pompous  menials 
without  much  terror,  never  without  much  respect. 
In  the  narrow  sense,  and  so  long  as  they  publicly  tread 
the  boards  of  their  profession,  it  would  be  difficult 
to  find  more  finished  gentlemen;  and  it  would  often 
be  a  matter  of  grave  thought  with  me,  sitting  in  my 
club,  to  compare  the  bearing  of  the  servants  with  that 
of  those  on  whom  they  waited.  There  could  be  no 
question  which  were  the  better  gentlemen.  And  yet 
I  was  hurried  into  no  democratic  theories ;  for  I  saw  the 
members'  part  was  the  more  difficult  to  play,  I  saw  that 
to  serve  was  a  more  graceful  attitude  than  to  be  served, 
I  knew  besides  that  much  of  the  servants'  gentility  was 
ad  hoc  and  would  be  laid  aside  with  their  livery  jackets; 
and  to  put  the  matter  in  a  nutshell,  that  some  of  the 
members  would  have  made  very  civil  footmen  and  many 
of  the  servants  intolerable  members.  For  all  that,  one 
of  the  prettiest  gentlemen  I  ever  knew  was  a  servant. 
A  gentleman  he  happened  to  be,  even  in  the  old  stupid 
sense,  only  on  the  wrong  side  of  the  blanket;  and  a 
man  besides  of  much  experience,  having  served  in  the 
Guards*  Club,  and  been  valet  to  old  Cooke  of  the  Satur- 
day Review,  and  visited  the  States  with  Madame  Sinico 
(I  think  it  was)  and  Portugal  with  Madame  Some-one- 
else,  so  that  he  had  studied,  at  least  from  the  chair-backs, 
many  phases  of  society.  It  chanced  he  was  waiter  in  a 
hotel  where  I  was  staying  with  my  mother;  it  was  mid- 
winter and  we  were  the  only  guests ;  all  afternoons,  he 
and  I  passed  together  on  a  perfect  equality  in  the  smok- 
ing-room ;  and  at  mealtime,  he  waited  on  my  mother 

348 


GENTLEMEN 

and  me  as  a  servant.  Now  here  was  a  trial  of  manners 
from  which  few  would  have  come  forth  successful.  To 
take  refuge  in  a  frozen  bearing  would  have  been  the 
timid,  the  inelegant,  resource  of  almost  all.  My  friend 
was  much  more  bold ;  he  joined  in  the  talk,  he  ventured 
to  be  jocular,  he  pushed  familiarity  to  the  nice  margin, 
and  yet  still  preserved  the  indefinable  and  proper  dis- 
tance of  the  English  servant,  and  yet  never  embarrassed, 
never  even  alarmed,  the  comrade  with  whom  he  had 
just  been  smoking  a  pipe.  It  was  a  masterpiece  of  so- 
cial dexterity  —  on  artificial  lines  no  doubt,  and  dealing 
with  difficulties  that  should  never  have  existed,  that 
exist  much  less  in  France,  and  that  will  exist  nowhere 
long — but  a  masterpiece  for  all  that,  and  one  that  1  ob- 
served with  despairing  admiration,  as  I  have  watched 
Sargent  paint. 

I  say  these  difficulties  should  never  have  existed ;  for 
the  whole  relation  of  master  and  servant  is  to-day  cor- 
rupt and  vulgar.  At  home  in  England  it  is  the  master 
who  is  degraded ;  here  in  the  States,  by  a  triumph  of 
inverted  tact,  the  servant  often  so  contrives  that  he  de- 
grades himself.  He  must  be  above  his  place ;  and  it  is 
the  mark  of  a  gentleman  to  be  at  home.  He  thinks 
perpetually  of  his  own  dignity ;  it  is  the  proof  of  a  gen- 
tleman to  be  jealous  of  the  dignity  of  others.  He  is 
ashamed  of  his  trade,  which  is  the  essence  of  vulgarity. 
He  is  paid  to  do  certain  services,  yet  he  does  them  so 
grufifiy  that  any  man  of  spirit  would  resent  them  if  they 
were  gratuitous  favours ;  and  this  (if  he  will  reflect  upon 
it  tenderly)  is  so  far  from  the  genteel  as  to  be  not  even 
coarsely  honest.  Yet  we  must  not  blame  the  man  for 
these  mistakes ;  the  vulgarity  is  in  the  air.    There  is  a 

349 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

tone  in  popular  literature  much  to  be  deplored;  depre- 
cating service,  like  a  disgrace;  honouring  those  who  are 
ashamed  of  it;  honouring  even  (I  speak  not  without 
book)  such  as  prefer  to  live  by  the  charity  of  poor  neigh- 
bours instead  of  blacking  the  shoes  of  the  rich.  Black- 
ing shoes  is  counted  (in  these  works)  a  thing  specially 
disgraceful.  To  the  philosophic  mind,  it  will  seem  a  less 
exceptionable  trade  than  to  deal  in  stocks,  and  one  in 
which  it  is  more  easy  to  be  honest  than  to  write  books. 
Why,  then,  should  it  be  marked  out  for  reprobation  by 
the  popular  authors?  It  is  taken,  I  think,  for  a  type; 
inoffensive  in  itself,  it  stands  for  many  disagreeable 
household  duties;  disagreeable  to  fulfil,  I  had  nearly 
said  shameful  to  impose;  and  with  the  dulness  of  their 
tribe,  the  popular  authors  transfer  the  shame  to  the 
wrong  party.  Truly,  in  this  matter  there  seems  a  lack 
of  gentility  somewhere ;  a  lack  of  refinement,  of  reserve, 
of  common  modesty ;  a  strain  of  the  spirit  of  those  ladies 
in  the  past,  who  did  not  hesitate  to  bathe  before  a  foot- 
man. And  one  thing  at  least  is  easy  to  prophesy,  not 
many  years  will  have  gone  by  before  those  shall  be  held 
the  most  '*  elegant"  gentlemen,  and  those  the  most 
''refined  "  ladies,  who  wait  (in  a  dozen  particulars)  upon 
themselves.  But  the  shame  is  for  the  masters  only.  The 
servant  stands  quite  clear.  He  has  one  of  the  easiest  parts 
to  play  upon  the  face  of  earth ;  he  must  be  far  misled,  if  he 
so  grossly  fails  in  it. 

Ill 

It  is  a  fairly  common  accomplishment  to  behave  with 
decency  in  one  character  and  among  those  to  whom 
we  are  accustomed  and  with  whom  we  have  been 

}5o 


GENTLEMEN 

brought  Up.  The  trial  of  gentility  lies  in  some  such 
problem  as  that  of  my  waiter's,  in  foreign  travel,  or  in 
some  sudden  and  sharp  change  of  class.  I  once  sailed 
on  the  emigrant  side  from  the  Clyde  to  New  York; 
among  my  fellow-passengers  I  passed  generally  as  a 
mason,  for  the  excellent  reason  that  there  was  a  mason 
on  board  who  happened  to  know;  and  this  fortunate  event 
enabled  me  to  mix  with  these  working  people  on  a  foot- 
ing of  equality.  I  thus  saw  them  at  their  best,  using 
their  own  civility;  while  I,  on  the  other  hand,  stood 
naked  to  their  criticism.  The  workmen  were  at  home, 
1  was  abroad,  I  was  the  shoe-black  in  the  drawing- 
room,  the  Huron  at  Versailles;  and  I  used  to  have  hot 
and  cold  fits,  lest  perchance  I  made  a  beast  of  myself  in 
this  new  environment.  I  had  no  allowances  to  hope  for ; 
I  could  not  plead  that  I  was  "only  a  gentleman  after 
all,"  for  I  was  known  to  be  a  mason;  and  I  must  stand 
and  fall  by  my  transplanted  manners  on  their  own  in- 
trinsic decency.  It  chanced  there  was  a  Welsh  black- 
smith on  board,  who  was  not  only  well-mannered  him- 
self and  a  judge  of  manners,  but  a  fellow  besides  of  an 
original  mind.  He  had  early  diagnosed  me  for  a  mas- 
querader  and  a  person  out  of  place;  and  as  we  had 
grown  intimate  upon  the  voyage,  I  carried  him  my 
troubles.  How  did  I  behave  ?  Was  I,  upon  this  crucial 
test,  at  all  a  gentleman  }  I  might  have  asked  eight  hun- 
dred thousand  blacksmiths  (if  Wales  or  the  world  con- 
tain so  many)  and  they  would  have  held  my  question 
for  a  mockery ;  but  Jones  was  a  man  of  genuine  per- 
ception, thought  a  long  time  before  he  answered,  look- 
ing at  me  comically  and  reviewing  ( I  could  see)  the 
.events  of  the  voyage,  and  then  told  me  that  ''on  the 

351 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

whole  "  I  did  '*  pretty  well."  Mr.  Jones  was  a  humane 
man  and  very  much  my  friend,  and  he  could  get  no 
further  than  *'  on  the  whole"  and  "  pretty  well."  1  was 
chagrined  at  the  moment  for  myself;  on  a  larger  basis 
of  experience,  I  am  now  only  concerned  for  my  class. 
My  coequals  would  have  done  but  little  better,  and 
many  of  them  worse.  Indeed,  I  have  never  seen  a 
sight  more  pitiable  than  that  of  the  current  gentleman 
unbending;  unless  it  were  the  current  lady!  It  is  these 
stiff-necked  condescensions,  it  is  that  graceless  assump- 
tion, that  make  the  diabolic  element  in  times  of  riot. 
A  man  may  be  willing  to  starve  in  silence  like  a  hero ; 
it  is  a  rare  man  indeed  who  can  accept  the  unspoken 
slights  of  the  unworthy,  and  not  be  embittered.  There 
was  a  visit  paid  to  the  steerage  quarters  on  this  same 
voyage,  by  a  young  gentleman  and  two  young  ladies ; 
and  as  I  was  by  that  time  pretty  well  accustomed  to  the 
workman's  standard,  I  had  a  chance  to  see  my  own 
class  from  below.  God  help  them,  poor  creatures !  As 
they  ambled  back  to  their  saloon,  they  left  behind,  in 
the  minds  of  my  companions,  and  in  my  mind  also,  an 
image  and  an  influence  that  might  well  have  set  them 
weeping,  could  they  have  guessed  its  nature.  I  spoke 
a  few  lines  past  of  a  shoe-black  in  a  drawing-room ;  it  is 
what  I  never  saw ;  but  I  did  see  that  young  gentleman  and 
these  young  ladies  on  the  forward  deck,  and  the  picture 
remains  with  me,  and  the  offence  they  managed  to  con- 
vey is  not  forgotten. 

IV 

And  yet  for  all  this  ambiguity,  for  all  these  imperfect 
examples,  we  know  clearly  what  we  mean  by  the  word. 

352 


GENTLEMEN 

When  we  meet  a  gentleman  of  another  class,  though 
all  contrariety  of  habits,  the  essentials  of  the  matter 
stand  confessed:  I  never  had  a  doubt  of  Jones.  More 
than  that,  we  recognise  the  type  in  books;  the  actors 
of  history,  the  characters  of  fiction,  bear  the  mark  upon 
their  brow ;  at  a  word,  by  a  bare  act,  we  discern  and 
segregate  the  mass,  this  one  a  gentleman,  the  others 
not.  To  take  but  the  last  hundred  years,  Scott,  Gor- 
don, Wellington  in  his  cold  way,  Grant  in  his  plain 
way,  Shelley  for  all  his  follies,  these  were  clearly  gen- 
tlemen; Napoleon,  Byron,  Lockhart,  these  were  as 
surely  cads,  and  the  two  first  cads  of  a  rare  water. 

Let  us  take  an  anecdote  of  Grant  and  one  of  Welling- 
ton. On  the  day  of  the  capitulation,  Lee  wore  his  pre- 
sentation sword ;  it  was  the  first  thing  Grant  observed, 
and  from  that  moment  he  had  but  one  thought:  how 
to  avoid  taking  it.  A  man,  who  should  perhaps  have 
had  the  nature  of  an  angel,  but  assuredly  not  the  spe- 
cial virtues  of  the  gentleman,  might  have  received  the 
sword,  and  no  more  words  about  it:  he  would  have 
done  well  in  a  plain  way.  One  who  wished  to  be  a 
gentleman,  and  knew  not  how,  might  have  received 
and  returned  it:  he  would  have  done  infamously  ill,  he 
would  have  proved  himself  a  cad ;  taking  the  stage  for 
himself,  leaving  to  his  adversary  confusion  of  counte- 
nance and  the  ungraceful  posture  of  the  man  condemned 
to  offer  thanks.  Grant,  without  a  word  said,  added  to 
the  terms  this  article:  **  All  officers  to  retain  their  side- 
arms;"  and  the  problem  was  solved  and  Lee  kept  his 
sword,  and  Grant  went  down  to  posterity,  not  perhaps 
a  fine  gentleman,  but  a  great  one.  And  now  for  Wel- 
lington.    The  tale  is  on  a  lower  plane,  is  elegant  rather 

353 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

than  noble ;  yet  it  is  a  tale  of  a  gentleman  too,  and  raises 
besides  a  pleasant  and  instructive  question.  Welling- 
ton and  Marshal  Marmont  were  adversaries  (it  will  not 
have  been  forgotten)  in  one  of  the  prettiest  recorded 
acts  of  military  fencing,  the  campaign  of  Salamanca:  it 
was  a  brilliant  business  on  both  sides,  just  what  Count 
Tolstoi  ought  to  study  before  he  writes  again  upon  the 
inutility  of  generals;  indeed,  it  was  so  very  brilliant  on 
the  Marshal's  part  that  on  the  last  day,  in  one  of  those 
extremes  of  cleverness  that  come  so  near  stupidity,  he 
fairly  overreached  himself,  was  taken  "in  flagrant  de- 
lict," was  beaten  like  a  sack,  and  had  his  own  arm 
shot  off  as  a  reminder  not  to  be  so  clever  the  next  time. 
It  appears  he  was  incurable;  a  more  distinguished  ex- 
ample of  the  same  precipitate,  ingenious  blundering 
will  be  present  to  the  minds  of  all  —  his  treachery  in 
1 8 14;  and  even  the  tale  I  am  now  telling  shows,  on  a 
lilliputian  scale,  the  man's  besetting  weakness.  Years 
after  Salamanca,  the  two  generals  met,  and  the  Marshal 
(willing  to  be  agreeable)  asked  the  Duke  his  opinion  of 
the  battle.  With  that  promptitude,  wit,  and  willing- 
ness to  spare  pain  which  make  so  large  a  part  of  the 
armory  of  the  gentleman,  Wellington  had  his  answer 
ready,  impossible  to  surpass  on  its  own  ground :  "  I  early 
perceived  your  excellency  had  been  wounded."  And 
you  see  what  a  pleasant  position  he  had  created  for  the 
Marshal,  who  had  no  more  to  do  than  just  to  bow  and 
smile  and  take  the  stage  at  his  leisure.  But  here  we 
come  to  our  problem.  The  Duke's  answer  (whether 
true  or  false)  created  a  pleasant  position  for  the  Marshal. 
But  what  sort  of  position  had  the  Marshal's  question 
^created  for  the  Duke  ?  and  had  not  Marmont  the  manoeu- 

354 


GENTLEMEN 

vrer  once  more  manoeuvred  himself  into  a  false  posi- 
tion ?  I  conceive  so.  It  is  the  man  who  has  gained 
the  victory,  not  the  man  who  has  suffered  the  defeat, 
who  finds  his  ground  embarrassing.  The  vanquished 
has  an  easy  part,  it  is  easy  for  him  to  make  a  handsome 
reference ;  but  how  hard  for  the  victor  to  make  a  hand- 
some reply !  Mn  unanswerable  compliment  is  the  social 
bludgeon '^nd  Marmont  (with  the  most  graceful  inten- 
tions in  the  world)  had  propounded  one  of  the  most 
desperate.  Wellington  escaped  from  his  embarrassment 
by  a  happy  and  courtly  inspiration.  Grant,  I  imagine, 
since  he  had  a  genius  for  silence,  would  have  found 
some  means  to  hold  his  peace.  Lincoln,  with  his  half- 
tact  and  unhappy  readiness,  might  have  placed  an  ap- 
propriate anecdote  and  raised  a  laugh ;  not  an  unkindly 
laugh,  for  he  was  a  kindly  man ;  but  under  the  circum- 
stances the  best-natured  laugh  would  have  been  death 
to  Marmont.  Shelley  (if  we  can  conceive  him  to  have 
gained  a  battle  at  all)  would  have  blushed  and  stam- 
mered, feeling  the  Marshal's  false  position  like  some 
grossness  of  his  own ;  and  when  the  blush  had  com- 
municated itself  to  the  cheeks  of  his  unlucky  questioner, 
some  stupid,  generous  word  (such  as  I  cannot  invent 
for  him)  would  have  found  its  way  to  his  lips  and  set 
them  both  at  ease.  Byron  ?  well,  he  would  have  man- 
aged to  do  wrong;  I  have  too  little  sympathy  for  that 
unmatched  vulgarian  to  create  his  part.  Napoleon  ? 
that  would  have  depended:  had  he  been  angry,  he 
would  have  left  all  competitors  behind  in  cruel  coarse- 
ness: had  he  been  in  a  good  humour,  it  might  have 
been  the  other  way.  For  this  man,  the  very  model  of 
a  cad,  was  so  well  served  with  truths  by  the  clear  insight 

355 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

cf  his  mind,  and  with  words  by  his  great  though  shallow 
gift  of  literature,  that  he  has  left  behind  him  one  of 
the  most  gentlemanly  utterances  on  record :  "  Madame, 
respecte:^  le  fardeau."  And  he  could  do  the  right 
thing  too,  as  well  as  say  it;  and  any  character  in  history 
might  envy  him  that  moment  when  he  gave  his  sword, 
the  sword  of  the  world-subduer,  to  his  old,  loyal  ene- 
my, Macdonald.  A  strange  thing  to  consider  two  gen- 
erations of  a  Skye  family,  and  two  generations  of  the 
same  virtue,  fidelity  to  the  defeated :  the  father  braving 
the  rains  of  the  Hebrides  with  the  tattered  beggar-lad 
that  was  his  rightful  sovereign ;  the  son,  in  that  princely 
house  of  Fontainebleau,  himself  a  marshal  of  the  Em- 
pire, receiving  from  the  gratitude  of  one  whom  he  had 
never  feared  and  who  had  never  loved  him,  the  tool  and 
symbol  of  the  world's  most  splendid  domination.  I 
am  glad,  since  1  deal  with  the  name  of  gentlemen,  to 
touch  for  one  moment  on  its  nobler  sense,  embodied, 
on  the  historic  scale  and  with  epic  circumstance,  in  the 
lives  of  these  Macdonalds.  Nor  is  there  any  man  but 
must  be  conscious  of  a  thrill  of  gratitude  to  Napoleon, 
for  his  worthy  recognition  of  the  worthiest  virtue.  Yes, 
that  was  done  like  a  gentleman ;  and  yet  in  our  hearts 
we  must  think  that  it  was  done  by  a  performer.  For  to 
feel  precisely  what  it  is  to  be  a  gentleman  and  what  it  is 
to  be  a  cad,  we  have  but  to  study  Napoleon's  attitude 
after  Trafalgar,  and  compare  it  with  that  beautiful  letter 
of  Louis  the  Fourteenth's  in  which  he  acknowledges 
the  news  of  Blenheim.  We  hear  much  about  the  Sun- 
king  nowadays,  and  Michelet  is  very  sad  reading  about 
his  government,  and  Thackeray  was  very  droll  about 
his  wig;  but  when  we  read  this  letter  from  the  vainest 

356 


GENTLEMEN 

king  in  Europe  smarting  under  the  deadliest  reverse,  we 
know  that  at  least  he  was  a  gentleman.  In  the  battle, 
Tallard  had  lost  his  son,  Louis  the  primacy  of  Europe; 
it  is  only  with  the  son  the  letter  deals.  Poor  Louis !  if 
his  wig  had  been  twice  as  great,  and  his  sins  twice  as 
numerous,  here  is  a  letter  to  throw  wide  the  gates  of 
Heaven  for  his  entrance.  I  wonder  what  would  Louis 
have  said  to  Marshal  Marmont  ?  Something  infinitely 
condescending;  for  he  was  too  much  of  a  king  to  be 
quite  a  gentleman.  And  Marcus  Aurelius,  how  would 
he  have  met  the  question  ?  With  some  reference  to  the 
gods  no  doubt,  uttered  not  quite  without  a  twang;  for 
the  good  emperor  and  great  gentleman  of  Rome  was  of 
the  methodists  of  his  day  and  race. 

And  now  to  make  the  point  at  which  I  have  been  aim- 
ing. The  perfectly  straightforward  person  who  should 
have  said  to  Marmont,  "1  was  uncommonly  glad  to  get 
you  beaten,"  would  have  done  the  next  best  to  Welling- 
ton who  had  the  inspiration  of  graceful  speech ;  just  as 
the  perfectly  straightforward  person  who  should  have 
taken  Lee's  sword  and  kept  it,  would  have  done  the  next 
best  to  Grant  who  had  the  inspiration  of  the  truly  grace- 
ful act.  Lee  would  have  given  up  his  sword  and  pre- 
served his  dignity ;  Marmont  might  have  laughed,  his 
pride  need  not  have  suffered.  Not  to  try  to  spare  peo- 
ple's feelings  is  so  much  kinder  than  to  try  in  a  wrong 
way;  and  not  to  try  to  be  a  gentleman  at  all  is  so  much 
more  gentlemanly  than  to  try  and  fail!  So  that  this 
gift,  or  grace,  or  virtue,  resides  not  so  much  in  conduct 
as  in  knowledge;  not  so  much  in  refraining  from  the 
wrong,  as  in  knowing  the  precisely  right.  A  quality 
of  exquisite  aptitude  marks  out  the  gentlemanly  act ; 

357 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 


without  an  element  of  wit,  we  can  be  only  gentlemen^ 
by  negatives. 


More  and  more,  as  our  knowledge  widens,  we  have 
to  reply  to  those  who  ask  for  a  definition :  "I  can't  give 
you  that,  but  I  will  tell  you  a  story."  We  cannot  say 
what  a  thing  will  be,  nor  what  it  ought  to  be;  but  we 
can  say  what  it  has  been,  and  how  it  came  to  be  what 
it  is:  History  instead  of  Definition.  It  is  this  which  (if 
we  continue  teachable)  will  make  short  work  of  all  po- 
litical theories;  it  is  on  this  we  must  fall  back  to  explain 
our  word,  gentleman. 

The  life  of  our  fathers  was  highly  ceremonial ;  a  man's 
steps  were  counted;  his  acts,  his  gestures  were  pre- 
scribed ;  marriage,  sale,  adoption,  and  not  only  legal  con- 
tracts, but  the  simplest  necessary  movements,  must  be 
all  conventionally  ordered  and  performed  to  rule.  Life 
was  a  rehearsed  piece;  and  only  those  who  had  been 
drilled  in  the  rehearsals  could  appear  with  decency  in 
the  performance.  A  gentile  man,  one  of  a  dominant 
race,  hereditary  priest,  hereditary  leader,  was,  by  the 
circumstances  of  his  birth  and  education,  versed  in  this 
symbolic  etiquette.  Whatever  circumstance  arose,  he 
would  be  prepared  to  utter  the  sacramental  word,  to 
perform  the  ceremonial  act.  For  every  exigence  of  fam- 
ily or  tribal  life,  peace  or  war,  marriage  or  sacrifice,  for- 
tune or  mishap,  he  stood  easily  waiting,  like  the  well- 
graced  actor  for  his  cue.  The  clan  that  he  guided  would 
be  safe  from  shame,  it  would  be  ensured  from  loss ;  for 
the  man's  attitude  would  be  always  becoming,  his  bar- 
gains legal,  and  his  sacrifices  pleasing  to  the  gods.    It 

358 


GENTLEMEN 

is  from  this  gentile  man,  the  priest,  the  chief,  the  ex- 
pert in  legal  forms  and  attitudes,  the  bulwark  and  the 
ornament  of  his  tribe,  that  our  name  of  gentleman  de- 
scends. So  much  of  the  sense  still  clings  to  it,  it  still 
points  the  man  who,  in  every  circumstance  of  life, 
knows  what  to  do  and  how  to  do  it  gracefully ;  so  much 
of  its  sense  it  has  lost,  for  this  grace  and  knowledge  are 
no  longer  of  value  in  practical  affairs ;  so  much  of  a  new 
sense  it  has  taken  on,  for  as  well  as  the  nicest  fitness, 
it  now  implies  a  punctual  loyalty  of  word  and  act. 
And  note  the  word  loyalty ;  here  is  a  parallel  advance 
from  the  proficiency  of  the  gentile  man  to  the  honour 
of  the  gentleman,  and  from  the  sense  of  legality  to  that 
of  loyalty.  With  the  decay  of  the  ceremonial  element 
in  life,  the  gentleman  has  lost  some  of  his  prestige,  I 
had  nearly  said  some  of  his  importance;  and  yet  his 
part  is  the  more  difficult  to  play.  It  is  hard  to  preserve 
the  figures  of  a  dance  when  many  of  our  partners  dance 
at  random.  It  is  easy  to  be  a  gentleman  in  a  very  stiff 
society,  where  much  of  our  action  is  prescribed ;  it  is 
hard  indeed  in  a  very  free  society  where  (as  it  seems) 
almost  any  word  or  act  must  come  by  inspiration.  The 
rehearsed  piece  is  at  an  end ;  we  are  now  floundering 
through  an  impromptu  charade.  Far  more  of  ceremo- 
nial remains  (to  be  sure)  traditional  in  the  terms  of  our 
association,  far  more  hereditary  in  the  texture  of  brains, 
than  is  dreamed  by  the  superficial;  it  is  our  fortress 
against  many  perils,  the  cement  of  states,  the  meeting 
ground  of  classes.  But  much  of  life  comes  up  for  the 
first  time,  unrehearsed,  and  must  be  acted  on  upon  the 
instant.  Knowledge  there  can  here  be  none;  the  man 
must  invent  an  attitude,  he  must  be  inspired  with  speech; 

359 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

and  the  most  perfect  gentleman  is  he  who,  in  these  ir- 
regular cases,  acts  and  speaks  with  most  aplomb  and 
fitness.  His  tact  simulates  knowledge;  to  see  him  so 
easy  and  secure  and  graceful,  you  would  think  he  had 
been  through  it  all  before;  you  would  think  he  was  the 
gentile  man  of  old,  repeating  for  the  thousandth  time, 
upon  some  public  business,  the  sacramental  words  and 
ceremonial  gestures  of  his  race. 

Lastly,  the  club  footman,  so  long  as  he  is  in  his  livery 
jacket,  appears  the  perfect  gentleman  and  visibly  out- 
shines the  members;  and  the  same  man,  in  the  public- 
house,  among  his  equals,  becomes  perhaps  plain  and 
dull,  perhaps  even  brutal.  He  has  learned  the  one  part 
of  service  perfectly;  there  he  has  knowledge,  he  shines 
in  the  prepared  performance;  outside  of  that  he  must 
rely  on  tact,  and  sometimes  flounders  sadly  in  the  unre- 
hearsed charade.  The  gentleman,  again,  may  be  put  to 
open  shame  as  he  changes  from  one  country,  or  from 
one  rank  of  society  to  another.  The  footman  was  a 
gentleman  only  ad  hoc  ;  the  other  (at  the  most)  ad  hcec; 
and  when  he  has  got  beyond  his  knowledge,  he  begins 
to  flounder  in  the  charade.  Even  so  the  gentile  man 
was  only  gentile  among  those  of  his  own  gens  and  their 
subordinates  and  neighbours ;  in  a  distant  city,  he  too 
was  peregrine  and  inexpert,  and  must  become  the  client 
of  another,  or  find  his  bargains  insecure  and  be  excluded 
from  the  service  of  the  gods. 


360 


SOME  GENTLEMEN  IN  FICTION 

TO  make  a  character  at  all  —  so  to  select,  so  to  de- 
scribe a  few  acts,  a  few  speeches,  perhaps  (though 
this  is  quite  superfluous)  a  few  details  of  physical 
appearance,  as  that  these  shall  all  cohere  and  strike  in 
the  reader's  mind  a  common  note  of  personality  —  there 
is  no  more  delicate  enterprise,  success  is  nowhere 
less  comprehensible  than  here.  We  meet  a  man,  we 
.find  his  talk  to  have  been  racy;  and  yet  if  every  word 
were  taken  down  by  shorthand,  we  should  stand 
amazed  at  its  essential  insignificance.  Physical  pres- 
ence, the  speaking  eye,  the  inimitable  commentary  of 
the  voice,  it  was  in  these  the  spell  resided ;  and  these 
are  all  excluded  from  the  pages  of  the  novel.  There  is 
one  writer  of  fiction  whom  I  have  the  advantage  of 
knowing;  and  he  confesses  to  me  that  his  success  in 
this  matter  (small  though  it  be)  is  quite  surprising  to 
himself.  "In  one.  of  my  books,"  he  writes,  ''and  in 
one  only,  the  characters  took  the  bit  in  their  mouth; 
all  at  once,  they  became  detached  from  the  flat  paper, 
they  turned  their  backs  on  me  and  walked  off  bodily ; 
and  from  that  time,  my  task  was  stenographic  —  it  was 
they  who  spoke,  it  was  they  who  wrote  the  remainder 
of  the  story.  When  this  miracle  of  genesis  occurred,  I 
was  thrilled  with  joyous  surprise;  I  felt  a  certain  awe 
—  shall  we  call  it  superstitious  ?    And  yet  how  small  a 

Copyright,  1888,  189S,  by  Charles  Scribner's  Sons. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

miracle  it  was ;  with  what  a  partial  life  were  my  char- 
acters endowed ;  and  when  all  was  said,  how  little  did 
I  know  of  them !  It  was  a  form  of  words  that  they 
supplied  me  with ;  it  was  in  a  form  of  words  that  they 
consisted;  beyond  and  behind  was  nothing."  The 
limitation,  which  this  writer  felt  and  which  he  seems  to 
have  deplored,  can  be  remarked  in  the  work  of  even 
literary  princes.  I  think  it  was  Hazlitt  who  declared 
that,  if  the  names  were  dropped  at  press,  he  could  re- 
store any  speech  in  Shakespeare  to  the  proper  speaker; 
and  I  dare  say  we  could  all  pick  out  the  words  of  Nym 
or  Pistol,  Caius  or  Evans ;  but  not  even  Hazlitt  could  do 
the  like  for  the  great  leading  characters,  who  yet  are 
cast  in  a  more  delicate  mould,  and  appear  before  us  far 
more  subtly  and  far  more  fully  differentiated,  than  these 
easy-going  ventriloquial  puppets.  It  is  just  when  the 
obvious  expedients  of  the  barrel-organ  vocabulary,  the 
droll  mispronunciation  or  the  racy  dialect,  are  laid 
aside,  that  the  true  masterpieces  are  wrought  (it  would 
seem)  from  nothing.  Hamlet  speaks  in  character,  I 
potently  believe  it,  and  yet  see  not  how.  He  speaks 
at  least  as  no  man  ever  spoke  in  life,  and  very  much  as 
many  other  heroes  do  in  the  same  volume;  now  utter- 
ing the  noblest  verse,  now  prose  of  the  most  cunning 
workmanship;  clothing  his  opinions  throughout  in  that 
amazing  dialect,  Shakespearese.  The  opinions  them- 
selves, again,  though  they  are  true  and  forcible  and  re- 
inforced with  excellent  images,  are  not  peculiar  either 
to  Hamlet,  or  to  any  man  or  class  or  period ;  in  their 
admirable  generality  of  appeal  resides  their  merit;  they 
might  figure,  and  they  would  be  applauded,  in  almost 
any  play  and  in  the  mouth  of  almost  any  noble  and 

36a 


SOME  GENTLEMEN   IN   FICTION 

considerate  character.  The  only  hint  that  is  given  as 
to  his  physical  man  —  I  speak  for  myself — is  merely 
shocking,  seems  merely  erroneous,  and  is  perhaps  best 
explained  away  upon  the  theory  that  Shakespeare  had 
Burbadge  more  directly  in  his  eye  than  Hamlet.  As 
for  what  the  Prince  does  and  what  he  refrains  from 
doing,  all  acts  and  passions  are  strangely  impersonal. 
A  thousand  characters,  as  different  among  themselves 
as  night  from  day,  should  yet,  under  the  like  stress  of 
circumstance,  have  trodden  punctually  in  the  footprints 
of  Hamlet  and  each  other.  Have  you  read  Andre  Cor- 
nelis?  in  which  M.  Bourget  handled  over  again  but 
yesterday  the  theme  of  Hamlet,  even  as  Godwin  had 
already  rehandled  part  of  it  in  Caleb  Williams,  You 
can  see  the  character  M.  Bourget  means  with  quite  suf- 
ficient clearness ;  it  is  not  a  masterpiece,  but  it  is  ade- 
quately indicated;  and  the  character  is  proper  to  the 
part,  these  acts  and  passions  fit  him  like  a  glove,  he  car- 
ries the  tale,  not  with  so  good  a  grace  as  Hamlet,  but 
with  equal  nature.  Well,  the  two  personalities  are  fun- 
damentally distinct :  they  breathe  upon  us  out  of  differ- 
ent worlds;  in  face,  in  touch,  in  the  subtile  atmos- 
phere by  which  we  recognise  an  individual,  in  all  that 
goes  to  build  up  a  character  —  or  at  least  that  shadowy 
thing,  a  character  in  a  book  —  they  are  even  opposed: 
the  same  fate  involves  them,  they  behave  on  the  same 
lines,  and  they  have  not  one  hair  in  common.  What, 
then,  remains  of  Hamlet.?  and  by  what  magic  does  he 
stand  forth  in  our  brains,  teres  atque  rotundm,  solid  to  the 
touch,  a  man  to  praise,  to  blame,  to  pity,  ay,  and  to  love  ? 
At  bottom,  what  we  hate  or  love  is  doubtless  some 
projection  of  the  author;  the  personal  atmosphere  is 

363 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

doubtless  his ;  and  when  we  think  we  know  Hamlet,  we 
know  but  a  side  of  his  creator.  It  is  a  good  old  com- 
fortable doctrine,  which  our  fathers  have  taken  for  a 
pillow,  which  has  served  as  a  cradle  for  ourselves ;  and 
yet,  in  some  of  its  applications,  it  brings  us  face  to  face 
with  difficulties.  I  said  last  month  that  we  could  tell  a 
gentleman  in  a  novel.  Let  us  continue  to  take  Hamlet. 
Manners  vary,  they  invert  themselves,  from  age  to  age; 
Shakespeare's  gentlemen  are  not  quite  ours,  there  is  no 
doubt  their  talk  would  raise  a  flutter  in  a  modern  tea- 
party  ;  but  in  the  old  pious  phrase,  they  have  the  root  of 
the  matter.  All  the  most  beautiful  traits  of  the  gentle- 
man adorn  this  character  of  Hamlet :  it  was  the  side  on 
which  Salvini  seized,  which  he  so  attractively  displayed, 
with  which  he  led  theatres  captive ;  it  is  the  side,  I  think, 
by  which  the  Prince  endears  himself  to  readers.  It  is 
true  there  is  one  staggering  scene,  the  great  scene  with 
his  mother.  But  we  must  regard  this  as  the  author's 
lost  battle ;  here  it  was  that  Shakespeare  failed :  what  to 
do  with  the  Queen,  how  to  depict  her,  how  to  make 
Hamlet  use  her,  these  (as  we  know)  were  his  miserable 
problem;  it  beat  him;  he  faced  it  with  an  indecision 
worthy  of  his  hero;  he  shifted,  he  shuffled  with  it;  in 
the  end,  he  may  be  said  to  have  left  his  paper  blank. 
One  reason  why  we  do  not  more  generally  recognise 
this  failure  of  Shakespeare's  is  because  we  have  most  of 
us  seen  the  play  performed;  and  managers,  by  what 
seems  a  stroke  of  art,  by  what  is  really  (I  dare  say)  a 
fortunate  necessity,  smuggle  the  problem  out  of  sight  — 
the  play,  too,  for  the  matter  of  that;  but  the  glamour  of 
the  footlights  and  the  charm  of  that  little  strip  of  fiddlers' 
heads  and  elbows,  conceal  the  conjuring.     This  stroke 

364 


SOME  GENTLEMEN   IN   FICTION 

of  art  (let  me  call  it  so)  consists  in  casting  the  Queen  as 
an  old  woman.  Thanks  to  the  footlights  and  the  fid- 
dlers' heads,  we  never  pause  to  inquire  why  the  King 
should  have  pawned  his  soul  for  this  college-bedmaker 
in  masquerade;  and  thanks  to  the  absurdity  of  the  whole 
position,  and  that  unconscious  unchivalry  of  audiences 
(ay,  and  of  authors  also)  to  old  women,  Hamlet's  mon- 
strous conduct  passes  unobserved  or  unresented.  Were 
the  Queen  cast  as  she  should  be,  a  woman  still  young 
and  beautiful,  had  she  been  coherently  written  by 
Shakespeare,  and  were  she  played  with  any  spirit,  even 
an  audience  would  rise. 

But  the  scene  is  simply  false,  effective  on  the  stage, 
untrue  of  any  son  or  any  mother;  in  judging  the  char- 
acter of  Hamlet,  it  must  be  left  upon  one  side;  and  in  all 
other  relations  we  recognise  the  Prince  for  a  gentleman. 

Now,  if  the  personal  charm  of  any  verbal  puppet  be  in- 
deed only  an  emanation  from  its  author,  may  we  con- 
clude, since  we  feel  Hamlet  to  be  a  gentleman,  that 
Shakespeare  was  one  too  ?  An  instructive  parallel  oc- 
curs. There  were  in  England  two  writers  of  fiction, 
contemporaries,  rivals  in  fame,  opposites  in  character; 
one  descended  from  a  great  house,  easy,  generous, 
witty,  debauched,  a  favourite  in  the  tap-room  and  the 
hunting  field,  yet  withal  a  man  of  a  high  practical  intel- 
ligence, a  distinguished  public  servant,  an  ornament  of 
the  bench :  the  other,  sprung  from  I  know  not  whence  — 
but  not  from  kings  —  buzzed  about  by  second-rate  wo- 
men, and  their  fit  companion,  a  tea-bibber  in  parlours,  a 
man  of  painful  propriety,  with  all  the  narrowness  and 
much  of  the  animosity  of  the  backshop  and  the  dissent- 
ing chapel.     Take  the  pair,  they  seem  like  types :  Field- 

365 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

ing,  with  all  his  faults,  was  undeniably  a  gentleman; 
Richardson,  with  all  his  genius  and  his  virtues,  as  un- 
deniably was  not.  And  now  turn  to  their  works.  In 
Tom  Jones,  a  novel  of  which  the  respectable  profess  that 
they  could  stand  the  dulness  if  it  were  not  so  black- 
guardly, and  the  more  honest  admit  they  could  forgive 
the  blackguardism  if  it  were  not  so  dull  —  in  Tom  Jones, 
with  its  voluminous  bulk  and  troops  of  characters,  there 
is  no  shadow  of  a  gentleman,  for  Allworthy  is  only  ink 
and  paper.  In  Joseph  Andrews,  I  fear  I  have  always 
confined  my  reading  to  the  parson;  and  Mr.  Adams, 
delightful  as  he  is,  has  no  pretension  *'  to  the  genteel." 
In  Amelia,  things  get  better;  all  things  get  better;  it  is 
one  of  the  curiosities  of  literature  that  Fielding,  who 
wrote  one  book  that  was  engaging,  truthful,  kind,  and 
clean,  and  another  book  that  was  dirty,  dull,  and  false, 
should  be  spoken  of,  the  world  over,  as  the  author  of 
the  second  and  not  the  first,  as  the  author  of  Tom  Jones, 
not  of  Amelia.  And  in  Amelia,  sure  enough,  we  find 
some  gentlefolk ;  Booth  and  Dr.  Harrison  will  pass  in  a 
crowd,  1  dare  not  say  they  will  do  more.  It  is  very 
differently  that  one  must  speak  of  Richardson's  creations. 
With  Sir  Charles  Grandison  I  am  unacquainted  —  there 
are  many  impediments  in  this  brief  life  of  man ;  I  have 
more  than  once,  indeed,  reconnoitred  the  first  volume 
with  a  flying  party,  but  always  decided  not  to  break 
ground  before  the  place  till  my  siege  guns  came  up;  and 
it's  an  odd  thing  —  I  have  been  all  these  years  in  the 
field,  and  that  powerful  artillery  is  still  miles  in  the  rear. 
The  day  it  overtakes  me.  Baron  Gibbon's  fortress  shall 
be  beat  about  his  ears,  and  my  flag  be  planted  on  the  for- 
midable ramparts  of  the  second  part  of  Faiist.     Claren- 

366 


SOME  GENTLEMEN  IN   FICTION 

don,  too  —  But  why  should  I  continue  this  confession  ? 
Let  the  reader  take  up  the  wondrous  tale  himself,  and 
run  over  the  books  that  he  has  tried,  and  failed  withal, 
and  vowed  to  try  again,  and  now  beholds,  as  he  goes 
about  a  library,  with  secret  compunction.  As  to  Sir 
Charles  at  least,  I  have  the  report  of  spies ;  and  by  the 
papers  in  the  office  of  my  Intelligence  Department,  it 
would  seem  he  was  a  most  accomplished  baronet.  I  am 
the  more  ready  to  credit  these  reports,  because  the  spies 
are  persons  thoroughly  accustomed  to  the  business ;  and 
because  my  own  investigation  of  a  kindred  quarter  of 
the  globe  {Clarissa  Marlowe)  has  led  me  to  set  a  high 
value  on  the  Richardsonians.  Lovelace  —  in  spite  of 
his  abominable  misbehaviour  —  Colonel  Morden  and  my 

Lord  M are  all  gentlemen  of  undisputed  quality.  They 

more  than  pass  muster,  they  excel ;  they  have  a  gallant, 
a  conspicuous  carriage;  they  roll  into  the  book,  four  in 
hand,  in  gracious  attitudes.  The  best  of  Fielding's  gen- 
tlemen had  scarce  been  at  their  ease  in  M Hall; 

Dr.  Harrison  had  seemed  a  plain,  honest  man,  a  trifle  be- 
low his  company;  and  poor  Booth  (supposing  him  to 
have  served  in  Colonel  Morden's  corps  and  to  have 
travelled  in  the  post-chaise  along  with  his  comman- 
dant) had  been  glad  to  slink  away  with  Mowbray  and 
crack  a  bottle  in  the  butler's  room. 

So  that  here,  on  the  terms  of  our  theory,  we  have  an 
odd  inversion,  tempting  to  the  cynic. 


Just  the  other  day,  there  were  again  two  rival  novel- 
ists in  England :  Thackeray  and  Dickens ;  and  the  case  of 

367 


MISCELLANEOUS  PAPERS 

the  last  is,  in  this  connection,  full  of  interest.  Here  was 
a  man  and  an  artist,  the  most  strenuous,  one  of  the  most 
endowed ;  and  for  how  many  years  he  laboured  in  vain 
to  create  a  gentleman !  With  all  his  watchfulness  of  merr 
and  manners,  with  all  his  fiery  industry,  with  his  ex- 
quisite native  gift  of  characterisation,  with  his  clear 
knowledge  of  what  he  meant  to  do,  there  was  yet 
something  lacking.  In  part  after  part,  novel  after  novel, 
a  whole  menagerie  of  characters,  the  good,  the  bad,  the- 
droll  and  the  tragic,  came  at  his  beck  like  slaves  about 
an  oriental  despot;  there  was  only  one  who  stayed 
away :  the  gentleman.  If  this  ill  fortune  had  persisted 
it  might  have  shaken  man's  belief  in  art  and  industry. 
But  years  were  given  and  courage  was  continued  to  the 
indefatigable  artist;  and  at  length,  after  so  many  and 
such  lamentable  failures,  success  began  to  attend  upon 
his  arms.  David  Copperfield  scrambled  through  on 
hands  and  knees ;  it  was  at  least  a  negative  success ; 
and  Dickens,  keenly  alive  to  all  he  did,  must  have  heaved 
a  sigh  of  infinite  relief  Then  came  the  evil  days,  the 
days  of  Dombey  and  Dorrit,  from  which  the  lover  of 
Dickens  willingly  averts  his  eyes ;  and  when  that  tem- 
porary blight  had  passed  away,  and  the  artist  began 
with  a  more  resolute  arm  to  reap  the  aftermath  of  his 
genius,  we  find  him  able  to  create  a  Carton,  a  Wray- 
burn,  a  Twemlow.  No  mistake  about  these  three;  they 
are  all  gentlemen :  the  sottish  Carton,  the  effete  Twem- 
low, the  insolent  Wrayburn,  all  have  doubled  the  cape. 
There  were  never  in  any  book  three  perfect  sentences 
on  end;  there  was  never  a  character  in  any  volume  but 
it  somewhere  tripped.  We  are  like  dancing  dogs  and 
preaching  women:  the  wonder  is  not  that  we  should 

368 


SOME  GENTLEMEN   IN   FICTION 

do  it  well,  but  that  we  should  do  it  at  all.  And  Wray- 
burn,  I  am  free  to  admit,  comes  on  one  occasion  to  the 
dust.  I  mean,  of  course,  the  scene  with  the  old  Jew. 
I  will  make  you  a  present  of  the  Jew  for  a  card-board 
figure;  but  that  is  neither  here  nor  there:  the  ineffectu- 
ality  of  the  one  presentment  does  not  mitigate  the  gross- 
ness,  the  baseness,  the  inhumanity  of  the  other.  In  this 
scene,  and  in  one  other  (if  I  remember  aright)  where  it 
is  echoed,  Wrayburn  combines  the  wit  of  the  omnibus- 
cad  with  the  good  feeling  of  the  Andaman  Islander:  in 
all  the  remainder  of  the  book,  throughout  a  thousand 
perils,  playing  (you  would  say)  with  difficulty,  the  au- 
thor swimmingly  steers  his  hero  on  the  true  course. 
The  error  stands  by  itself,  and  it  is  striking  to  observe 
the  moment  of  its  introduction.  It  follows  immediately 
upon  one  of  the  most  dramatic  passages  in  fiction,  that 
in  which  Bradley  Headstone  barks  his  knuckles  on  the 
church-yard  wall.  To  handle  Bradley  (one  of  Dickens's 
superlative  achievements)  were  a  thing  impossible  to 
almost  any  man  but  his  creator;  and  even  to  him,  we 
may  be  sure,  the  effort  was  exhausting.  Dickens  was 
a  weary  man  when  he  had  barked  the  school-master's 
knuckles,  a  weary  man  and  an  excited ;  but  the  tale  of 
bricks  had  to  be  finished,  the  monthly  number  waited; 
and  under  the  false  inspiration  of  irritated  nerves,  the 
scene  of  Wrayburn  and  the  Jew  was  written  and  sent 
forth ;  and  there  it  is,  a  blot  upon  the  book  and  a  buffet 
to  the  reader. 

I  make  no  more  account  of  this  passage  than  of  that 
other  in  Hamlet:  a  scene  that  has  broken  down,  the 
judicious  reader  cancels  for  himself  And  the  general 
tenor  of  Wrayburn,  and  the  whole  of  Carton  and  Twem- 

369 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

low,  are  beyond  exception.  Here,  then,  we  have  a  man 
who  found  it  for  years  an  enterprise  beyond  his  art  to 
draw  a  gentleman,  and  who  in  the  end  succeeded.  Is 
it  because  Dickens  was  not  a  gentleman  himself  that  he 
so  often  failed  ?  and  if  so,  then  how  did  he  succeed  at  last  ? 
Is  it  because  he  was  a  gentleman  that  he  succeeded  ? 
and  if  so,  what  made  him  fail  ?  I  feel  inclined  to  stop 
this  paper  here,  after  the  manner  of  conundrums,  and 
offer  a  moderate  reward  for  a  solution.  But  the  true 
answer  lies  probably  deeper  than  did  ever  plummet 
sound.  And  mine  (such  as  it  is)  will  hardly  appear  to 
the  reader  to  disturb  the  surface. 

These  verbal  puppets  (so  to  call  them  once  again)  are 
things  of  a  divided  parentage :  the  breath  of  life  may  be 
an  emanation  from  their  maker,  but  they  themselves  are 
only  strings  of  words  and  parts  of  books ;  they  dwell  in, 
they  belong  to,  literature;  convention,  technical  artifice, 
technical  gusto,  the  mechanical  necessities  of  the  art, 
these  are  the  flesh  and  blood  with  which  they  are  in- 
vested. If  we  look  only  at  Carton  and  Wrayburn,  both 
leading  parts,  it  must  strike  us  at  once  that  both  are 
most  ambitiously  attempted ;  that  Dickens  was  not  con- 
tent to  draw  a  hero  and  a  gentleman  plainly  and  quietly; 
that,  after  all  his  ill-success,  he  must  still  handicap  him- 
self upon  these  fresh  adventures,  and  make  Carton  a  sot, 
and  sometimes  a  cantankerous  sot,  and  Wrayburn  in- 
solent to  the  verge,  and  sometimes  beyond  the  verge, 
of  what  is  pardonable.  A  moment's  thought  will  show 
us  this  was  in  the  nature  of  his  genius,  and  a  part  of  his 
literary  method.  His  fierce  intensity  of  design  was  not 
to  be  slaked  with  any  academic  portraiture;  not  all  the 
arts  of  individualisation  could  perfectly  content  him ;  he 

379 


SOME  GENTLEMEN   IN    FICTION 

must  still  seek  something  more  definite  and  more  ex- 
press than  nature.  All  artists,  it  may  be  properly  argued, 
do  the  like;  it  is  their  method  to  discard  the  middling 
and  the  insignificant,  to  disengage  the  charactered  and 
the  precise.  But  it  is  only  a  class  of  artists  that  pursue 
so  singly  the  note  of  personality ;  and  is  it  not  possible 
that  such  a  preoccupation  may  disable  men  from  repre- 
senting gentlefolk  ?  The  gentleman  passes  in  the  stream 
of  the  day's  manners,  inconspicuous.  The  lover  of  the 
individual  may  find  him  scarce  worth  drawing.  And 
even  if  he  draw  him,  on  what  will  his  attention  centre 
but  just  upon  those  points  in  which  his  model  exceeds 
or  falls  short  of  his  subdued  ideal  —  but  just  upon  those 
points  in  which  the  gentleman  is  not  genteel  ?  Dickens, 
in  an  hour  of  irritated  nerves,  and  under  the  pressure 
of  the  monthly  number,  defaced  his  Wrayburn.  Ob- 
serve what  he  sacrifices.  The  ruling  passion  strong 
in  his  hour  of  weakness,  he  sacrifices  dignity,  de- 
cency, the  essential  human  beauties  of  his  hero ;  he  still 
preserves  the  dialect,  the  shrill  note  of  personality,  the 
mark  of  identification.  Thackeray,  under  the  strain  of 
the  same  villainous  system,  would  have  fallen  upon  the 
other  side;  his  gentleman  would  still  have  been  a  gen- 
tleman, he  would  have  only  ceased  to  be  an  individual 
figure. 

There  are  incompatible  ambitions.     You  cannot  paint 
a  Vandyke  and  keep  it  a  Franz  Hals. 

Ill 

I  have  preferred  to  conclude  my  inconclusive  argument 
before  I  touched  on  Thackeray.     Personally,  he  scarce 

371 


MISCELLANEOUS   PAPERS 

appeals  to  us  as  the  ideal  gentleman ;  if  there  were  noth- 
ing else,  perpetual  nosing  after  snobbery  at  least  sug- 
gests the  snob ;  but  about  the  men  he  made,  there  can 
be  no  such  question  of  reserve.  And  whether  because 
he  was  himself  a  gentleman  in  a  very  high  degree,  or 
because  his  methods  were  in  a  very  high  degree  suited 
to  this  class  of  work,  or  from  the  common  operation  of 
both  causes,  a  gentleman  came  from  his  pen  by  the  gift 
of  nature.  He  could  draw  him  as  a  character  part,  full 
of  pettiness,  tainted  with  vulgarity,  and  yet  still  a  gen- 
tleman, in  the  inimitable  Major  Pendennis.  He  could 
draw  him  as  the  full-blown  hero  in  Colonel  Esmond. 
He  could  draw  him  —  the  next  thing  to  the  work  of  God 
—  human  and  true  and  noble  and  frail,  in  Colonel  New- 
come.  If  the  art  of  being  a  gentleman  were  forgotten, 
like  the  art  of  staining  glass,  it  might  be  learned  anew 
from  that  one  character.  It  is  learned  there,  I  dare  to 
say,  daily.  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  in  a  graceful  attitude  of 
melancholy,  denies  the  influence  of  books.  I  think  he 
forgets  his  philosophy ;  for  surely  there  go  two  elements 
to  the  determination  of  conduct:  heredity,  and  experi- 
ence—  that  which  is  given  to  us  at  birth,  that  which  is 
added  and  cancelled  in  the  course  of  life;  and  what  ex- 
perience is  more  formative,  what  step  of  life  is  more 
efficient,  than  to  know  and  weep  for  Colonel  Newcome? 
And  surely  he  forgets  himself;  for  I  call  to  mind  other 
pages,  beautiful  pages,  from  which  it  may  be  gathered 
that  the  language  of  the  Newcomes  sings  still  in  his 
memory,  and  its  gospel  is  sometimes  not  forgotten.  I 
call  it  a  gospel :  it  is  the  best  I  know.  Error  and  suffer- 
ing and  failure  and  death,  those  calamities  that  our  con- 
temporaries paint  upon  so  vast  a  scale  —  they  are  all 

37a 


SOME  GENTLEMEN   IN   FICTION 

depicted  here,  but  in  a  more  true  proportion.  We  may 
return,  before  tliis  picture,  to  the  simple  and  ancient 
faith.  We  may  be  sure  (although  we  know  not  why) 
that  we  give  our  lives,  like  coral  insects,  to  build  up  in- 
sensibly, in  the  twilight  of  the  seas  of  time,  the  reef  of 
righteousness.  And  we  may  be  sure  (although  we  see 
not  how)  it  is  a  thing  worth  doing. 


m 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

A  PAGE  OF  HISTORY 
1666 


'  A  cloud  of  witnesses  ly  here. 
Who  for  Chris  fs  interest  did  appear.** 

Inscription  on  Battle-field  at  Rullion  Green. 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

I.  THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 

"Halt,  passengtr ;  take  heed  what  thou  dost  see. 
This  tomb  doth  show  for  what  some  men  did  die." 

Monument,  Greyfriars'  Churchyard,  Edinburgh,  z66i-z668.1 

TWO  hundred  years  ago  a  tragedy  was  enacted  in 
Scotland,  the  memory  whereof  has  been  in  great 
measure  lost  or  obscured  by  the  deeper  tragedies  which 
followed  it.  It  is,  as  it  were,  the  evening  of  the  night 
of  persecution  —  a  sort  of  twilight,  dark  indeed  to  us, 
but  light  as  the  noonday  when  compared  with  the  mid- 
night gloom  which  followed.  This  fact,  of  its  being 
the  very  threshold  of  persecution,  lends  it,  however,  an 
additional  interest. 

The  prejudices  of  the  people  against  Episcopacy  were 
*'out  of  measure  increased,"  says  Bishop  Burnet,  **by 
the  new  incumbents,  who  were  put  in  the  place  of  the 
ejected  preachers,  and  were  generally  very  mean  and 
despicable  in  all  respects.  They  were  the  worst 
preachers  I  ever  heard;  they  were  ignorant  to  a  re- 
proach ;  and  many  of  them  were  openly  vicious.  They 
were  indeed  the  dregs  and  refuse  of  the  northern  parts. 
Those  of  them  who  rose  above  contempt  or  scandal 
1  Theatre  of  Mortality,  p.  lo,  Edin.  1713. 
377 


THE  PENTLAND   RISING 

were  men  of  such  violent  tempers  that  they  were  as 
much  hated  as  the  others  were  despised."  ^  It  was  little 
to  be  wondered  at,  from  this  account,  that  the  country- 
folk refused  to  go  to  the  parish  church,  and  chose  rather 
to  listen  to  outed  ministers  in  the  field.  But  this  was 
not  to  be  allowed,  and  their  persecutors  at  last  fell  on 
the  method  of  calling  a  roll  of  the  parishioners'  names 
every  Sabbath  and  marking  a  fine  of  twenty  shillings 
Scots  to  the  name  of  each  absenter.  In  this  way  very 
large  debts  were  incurred  by  persons  altogether  unable 
to  pay.  Besides  this,  landlords  were  fined  for  their 
tenants'  absences,  tenants  for  their  landlords,  masters 
for  their  servants,  servants  for  their  masters,  even  though 
they  themselves  were  perfectly  regular  in  their  atten- 
dance. And  as  the  curates  were  allowed  to  fine  with 
the  sanction  of  any  common  soldier,  it  may  be  imag- 
ined that  often  the  pretexts  were  neither  very  sufficient 
nor  well  proven. 

When  the  fines  could  not  be  paid  at  once,  bibles, 
clothes,  and  household  utensils  were  seized  upon,  or  a 
number  of  soldiers,  proportionate  to  his  wealth,  were 
quartered  on  the  offender.  The  coarse  and  drunken 
privates  filled  the  houses  with  woe;  snatched  the  bread 
from  the  children  to  feed  their  dogs;  shocked  the  prin- 
ciples, scorned  the  scruples,  and  blasphemed  the  reli- 
gion of  their  humble  hosts;  and  when  they  had  reduced 
them  to  destitution,  sold  the  furniture,  and  burned 
down  the  roof-tree,  which  was  consecrated  to  the  peas- 
ants by  the  name  of  Home.  For  all  this  attention  each 
of  these  soldiers  received  from  his  unwilling  landlord 

1  History  of  my  Own  Times,  beginning  1660,  by  Bishop  Gilbert  Burnet, 
p.  158. 

578 


THE  CAUSES  OF  THE  REVOLT 

a  certain  sum  of  money  per  day — three  shillings  sterling, 
according  to  ''Naphtali."  And  frequently  they  were 
forced  to  pay  quartering  money  for  more  men  than  were 
in  reality  *'cessed"  on  them.  At  that  time  it  was  no 
strange  thing  to  behold  a  strong  man  begging  for  money 
to  pay  his  fines,  and  many  others  who  were  deep  in 
arrears,  or  who  had  attracted  attention  in  some  other 
way,  were  forced  to  flee  from  their  homes,  and  take 
refuge  from  arrest  and  imprisonment  among  the  wild 
mosses  of  the  uplands,  i 
One  example  in  particular  we  may  cite: — 
John  Nielson,  the  Laird  of  Corsack,  a  worthy  man, 
was,  unfortunately  for  himself,  a  Nonconformist.  First 
he  was  fined  in  four  hundred  pounds  Scots,  and  then 
through  cessing  he  lost  nineteen  hundred  and  ninety- 
three  pounds  Scots.  He  was  next  obliged  to  leave  his 
house  and  flee  from  place  to  place,  during  which  wan- 
derings he  lost  his  horse.  His  wife  and  children  were 
turned  out  of  doors,  and  then  his  tenants  were  fined  till 
they  too  were  almost  all  ruined.  As  a  final  stroke,  they 
drove  away  all  his  cattle  to  Glasgow  and  sold  them.2 
Surely  it  was  time  that  something  were  done  to  alle- 
viate so  much  sorrow,  to  overthrow  such  tyanny. 

About  this  time  too  there  arrived  in  Galloway  a  per- 
son calling  himself  Captain  Andrew  Gray,  and  advising 
the  people  to  revolt.  He  displayed  some  documents 
purporting  to  be  from  the  northern  Covenanters,  and 
stating  that  they  were  prepared  to  join  in  any  enterprise 
commenced  by  their  southern  brethren.  The  leader  of 
the  persecutors  was  Sir  James  Turner,  an  officer  after- 

1  Wodrow's  Church  History,  book  ii.  chap.  i.  sect,  i . 

2  Cruickshank's  Church  History,  1751,  2d  edit.  p.  202. 

379 


THE  PENTLAND   RISING 

wards  degraded  for  his  share  in  the  matter.  **  He  was 
naturally  fierce,  but  was  mad  when  he  was  drunk,  and 
that  was  very  often,"  said  Bishop  Burnet.  "He  was  a 
learned  man,  but  had  always  been  in  armies,  and  knew 
no  other  rule  but  to  obey  orders.  He  told  me  he  had  no 
regard  to  any  law,  but  acted,  as  he  was  commanded,  in 
a  military  way."^ 

This  was  the  state  of  matters,  when  an  outrage  was 
committed  which  gave  spirit  and  determination  to  the 
oppressed  countrymen,  lit  the  flame  of  insubordination, 
and  for  the  time  at  least  recoiled  on  those  who  perpe- 
trated it  with  redoubled  force. 

1  Burnet,  p.  348. 


380 


II.   THE  BEGINNING 

/  love  no  warres,  If  it  must  be, 

J  love  no  j'arres,  Warre  -we  must  see 

Nor  strife's  fire.  (So  fates  conspire)^ 

May  discora  cease.  May  we  not  feel 

Let's  live  in  peace  :  The  force  of  steel: 

This  I  desire.  This  I  desire. 

T.  Jackson,  1651.  ^ 

Upon  Tuesday,  November  13th,  1666,  Corporal  George 
Deanes  and  three  other  soldiers  set  upon  an  old  man  in 
the  Clachan  of  Dairy,  and  demanded  the  payment  of  his 
fines.  On  the  old  man's  refusing  to  pay,  they  forced  a 
large  party  of  his  neighbours  to  go  with  them  and  thresh 
his  corn.  The  field  was  a  certain  distance  out  of  the 
clachan,  and  four  persons,  disguised  as  countrymen,  who 
had  been  out  on  the  moors  all  night,  met  this  mournful 
drove  of  slaves,  compelled  by  the  four  soldiers  to  work 
for  the  ruin  of  their  friend.  However,  chilled  to  the  bone 
by  their  night  on  the  hills,  and  worn  out  by  want  of 
food,  they  proceeded  to  the  village  inn  to  refresh  them- 
selves. Suddenly  some  people  rushed  into  the  room 
where  they  were  sitting,  and  told  them  that  the  soldiers 
were  about  to  roast  the  old  man,  naked,  on  his  own 
girdle.  This  was  too  much  for  them  to  stand,  and  they 
repaired  immediately  to  the  scene  of  this  gross  outrage, 
and  at  first  merely  requested  that  the  captive  should  be 
released.  On  the  refusal  of  the  two  soldiers  who  were 
in  the  front  room,  high  words  were  given  and  taken  on 
both  sides,  and  the  other  two  rushed  forth  from  an  ad- 

1  Fuller's  Historic  of  the  Holy  Warre.     4th  edit.  165 1. 
381 


THE  PENTLAND   RISING 

joining  chamber  and  made  at  the  countrymen  with  drawn 
swords.  One  of  the  latter,  John  M'Lellan  of  Barskob, 
drew  a  pistol  and  shot  the  corporal  in  the  body.  The 
pieces  of  tobacco  pipe  with  which  it  was  loaded,  to  the 
number  of  ten  at  least,  entered  him,  and  he  was  so  much 
disturbed  that  he  never  appears  to  have  recovered,  for 
we  find  long  afterwards  a  petition  to  the  Privy  Council 
requesting  a  pension  for  him.  The  other  soldiers  then 
laid  down  their  arms,  the  old  man  was  rescued,  and  the 
rebellion  was  commenced.^ 

And  now  we  must  turn  to  Sir  James  Turner's  memoirs 
of  himself;  for,  strange  to  say,  this  extraordinary  man 
was  remarkably  fond  of  literary  composition,  and  wrote, 
besides  the  amusing  account  of  his  own  adventures  just 
mentioned,  a  large  number  of  essays  and  short  biog- 
raphies, and  a  work  on  war,  entitled  ''Pallas  Armata." 
The  following  are  some  of  the  shorter  pieces: — "Ma- 
gick,"  "  Friendship,"  "  Imprisonment,"  ''Anger,"  "  Re- 
venge," "Duells,"  "Cruelty,"  "A  Defence  of  some  of 
the  Ceremonies  of  the  English  Liturgie,  to  wit — Bow- 
ing at  the  Name  of  Jesus,  The  frequent  repitition  of  the 
Lord's  Prayer  and  Good  Lord  deliver  us.  Of  the  Dox- 
ologie.  Of  Surplesses,  Rotchets,  Cannonicall  Coats,"  etc. 
From  what  we  know  of  his  character  we  should  expect 
"Anger  "  and  "  Cruelty  "  to  be  very  full  and  instructive. 
But  what  earthly  right  he  had  to  meddle  with  ecclesi- 
astical subjects  it  is  hard  to  see. 

Upon  the  12th  of  the  month  he  had  received  some 
information  concerning  Gray's  proceedings,  but  as  it 
was  excessively  indefinite  in  its  character,  he  paid  no 
attention  to  it.     On  the  evening  of  the  14th,  Corporal 

1  Wodrow,  vol.  II.  p.  17. 
58a 


THE  BEGINNING 

Deanes  was  brought  into  Dumfries,  who  affirmed  stoutly 
that  he  had  been  shot  while  refusing  to  sign  the  Cove- 
nant—  a  story  rendered  singularly  unlikely  by  the  after 
conduct  of  the  rebels.  Sir  James  instantly  despatched 
orders  to  the  cessed  soldiers  either  to  come  to  Dumfries, 
or  meet  him  on  the  way  to  Dairy,  and  commanded  the 
thirteen  or  fourteen  men  in  the  town  with  him  to  come 
at  nine  next  morning  to  his  lodging  for  supplies. 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday  the  rebels  arrived  at 
Dumfries,  with  50  horse  and  1 50  foot.  Nielson  of  Cor- 
sack,  and  Gray,  who  commanded,  with  a  considerable 
troop,  entered  the  town,  and  surrounded  Sir  James  Tur- 
ner's lodging.  Though  it  was  between  eight  and  nine 
o'clock,  that  worthy,  being  unwell,  was  still  in  bed, 
but  rose  at  once  and  went  to  the  window. 

Nielson  and  some  others  cried  — "  You  may  have  fair 
quarter."  "I  need  no  quarter,"  replied  Sir  James;  "nor 
can  I  be  a  prisoner,  seeing  there  is  no  war  declared." 
On  being  told,  however,  that  he  must  either  be  a  pri- 
soner, or  die,  he  came  down  and  went  into  the  street  in 
his  night-shirt.  Here  Gray  showed  himself  very  desir- 
ous of  killing  him,  but  he  was  overruled  by  Corsack. 
However,  he  was  taken  away  a  prisoner.  Captain  Gray 
mounting  him  on  his  own  horse,  though,  as  Turner 
naively  remarks,  *' there  was  a  good  reason  for  it,  for 
he  mounted  himself  on  a  farre  better  one  of  mine."  A 
large  coffer  containing  his  clothes  and  money,  together 
with  all  his  papers,  were  taken  away  by  the  rebels. 
They  robbed  Master  Chalmers,  the  Episcopalian  minis- 
ter of  Dumfries,  of  his  horses,  drank  the  King's  health 
at  the  market-cross,  and  then  left  Dumfries.^ 

1  Sir  J.  Turner's  Memoirs,  pp.  148-150. 
383 


III.  THE  MARCH  OF  THE  REBELS 

"  Stay,  passenger,  take  notice  what  thou  reads, 
A  t  Edinburgh  lie  our  bodies,  here  our  heads  ; 
Our  right  hands  stood  at  Lanark,  these  we  want. 
Because  with  them  we  signed  the  Covenant." 

Epitaph  on  a  Tombstone  at  Hamilton.! 

On  Friday  the  i6th,  Bailie  Irvine  of  Dumfries  came  to 
the  Council  at  Edinburgh,  and  gave  information  con- 
cerning this  ''horrid  rebellion."  In  the  absence  of 
Rothes,  Sharpe  presided  —  much  to  the  wrath  of  some 
members;  and  as  he  imagined  his  own  safety  endan- 
gered, his  measures  were  most  energetic.  Dalzell  was 
ordered  away  to  the  west,  the  guards  round  the  city 
were  doubled,  officers  and  soldiers  were  forced  to  take 
the  oath  of  allegiance,  and  all  lodgers  were  commanded 
to  give  in  their  names.  Sharpe,  surrounded  with  all 
these  guards  and  precautions,  trembled  —  trembled  as 
he  trembled  when  the  avengers  of  blood  drew  him  from 
his  chariot  on  Magus  Muir, — for  he  knew  how  he  had 
sold  his  trust,  how  he  had  betrayed  his  charge,  and  he 
felt  that  against  him  must  their  chiefest  hatred  be  di- 
rected, against  him  their  direst  thunderbolts  be  forged. 
But  even  in  his  fear  the  apostate  Presbyterian  was 
unrelenting,  unpityingly  harsh;  he  published  in  his 
manifesto  no  promise  of  pardon,  no  inducement  to  sub- 
mission. He  said,  '*If  you  submit  not  you  must  die," 
but  never  added,  *'  If  you  submit  you  may  live  I "  ^ 

1 A  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  p.  376. 
•Wodrow,  pp.  19,  ao. 
384 


THE  MARCH   OF  THE   REBELS 

Meantime  the  insurgents  proceded  on  their  way.  At 
Carsphairn  they  were  deserted  by  Captain  Gray,  who, 
doubtless  in  a  fit  of  oblivion,  neglected  to  leave  behind 
him  the  coffer  containing  Sir  James's  money.  Who  he 
was  is  a  mystery,  unsolved  by  any  historian;  his  pa- 
pers were  evidently  forgeries  —  that,  and  his  final  flight, 
appear  to  indicate  that  he  was  an  agent  of  the  Royal- 
ists, for  either  the  King  or  the  Duke  of  York  was  heard 
to  say — "That,  if  he  might  have  his  wish,  he  would 
have  them  all  turn  rebels  and  go  to  arms."^ 

Upon  the  i8th  day  of  the  month  they  left  Carsphairn 
and  marched  onwards. 

Turner  was  always  lodged  by  his  captors  at  a  good 
inn,  frequently  at  the  best  of  which  their  halting-place 
could  boast.  Here  many  visits  were  paid  to  him  by 
the  ministers  and  officers  of  the  insurgent  force.  In 
his  description  of  these  interviews  he  displays  a  vein 
of  satiric  severity,  admitting  any  kindness  that  was 
done  to  him  with  some  qualifying  souvenir  of  former 
harshness,  and  gloating  over  any  injury,  mistake,  or 
folly  which  it  was  his  chance  to  suffer  or  to  hear.  He 
appears,  notwithstanding  all  this,  to  have  been  on  pretty 
good  terms  with  his  cruel  "  phanaticks,"  as  the  follow- 
ing extract  sufficiently  proves  :  — 

"Most  of  the  foot  were  lodged  about  the  church  or 
churchyard,  and  order  given  to  ring  bells  next  morn- 
ing for  a  sermon  to  be  preached  by  Mr.  Welch.  Max- 
well of  Morith,  and  Major  M'Cullough  invited  me  to 
heare  'that  phanatick  sermon'  (for  soe  they  merrilie 
called  it).  They  said  that  preaching  might  prove  an 
effectual  meane  to  turne  me,  which  they  heartilie  wished. 

1  A  Hind  Let  Loose,  p.  123. 
385 


THE   PENTLAND   RISING 

I  answered  to  them  that  I  was  under  guards,  and  that 
if  they  intended  to  heare  that  sermon,  it  was  probable  I 
might  likewise,  for  it  was  not  like  my  guards  wold  goe  to 
church  and  leave  me  alone  at  my  lodgeings.  Bot  to  what 
they  said  of  my  conversion,  I  said,  it  wold  be  hard  to 
turne  a  Turner.  Bot  because  I  founde  them  in  a  merrie 
humour,  I  said,  if  I  did  not  come  to  heare  Mr.  Welch 
preach,  then  they  might  fine  me  in  fortie  shillings  Scots, 
which  was  duoble  the  suome  of  what  I  had  exacted  from 
the  phanatics. "  ^  This  took  place  at  Ochiltree,  on  the  22d 
day  of  the  month.  The  following  is  recounted  by  this 
personage  with  malicious  glee,  and  certainly,  if  authen- 
tic, it  is  a  sad  proof  of  how  chaff  is  mixed  with  wheat, 
and  how  ignorant,  almost  impious,  persons  were  en- 
gaged in  this  movement;  nevertheless  we  give  it,  for 
we  wish  to  present  with  impartiality  all  the  alleged 
facts  to  the  reader:  — 

'*  Towards  the  evening  Mr.  Robinsone  and  Mr.  Cruk- 
shank  gaue  me  a  visite;  I  called  for  some  ale  purposelie 
to  heare  one  of  them  blesse  it.  It  fell  Mr.  Robinsone 
to  seeke  the  blessing,  who  said  one  of  the  most  bom- 
bastick  graces  that  ever  I  heard  in  my  life.  He  sum- 
moned God  Allmightie  very  imperiouslie  to  be  their 
secondarie  (for  that  was  his  language).  'And  if,'  said 
he  *thou  wilt  not  be  our  Secondarie,  we  will  not  fight 
for  thee  at  all,  for  it  is  not  our  cause  bot  thy  cause;  and 
if  thou  wilt  not  fight  for  our  cause  and  thy  oune  cause, 
then  we  are  not  obliged  to  fight  for  it.  They  say,'  said 
he,  'that  Dukes,  Earles,  and  Lords  are  coming  with  the 
King's  General  against  us,  bot  they  shall  be  nothing  bot 
a  threshing  to  us.'    This  grace  did  more  fullie  satisfie 

ISir  J.  Turner,  p.  163. 
386 


THE  MARCH   OF  THE  REBELS 

me  of  the  folly  and  injustice  of  their  cause,  than  the  ale 
did  quench  my  thirst."^ 

Frequently  the  rebels  made  a  halt  near  some  roadside 
ale-house,  or  in  some  convenient  park,  where  Colonel 
Wallace,  who  had  now  taken  the  command,  would  re- 
view the  horse  and  foot,  during  which  time  Turner  was 
sent  either  into  the  ale-house  or  round  the  shoulder  of 
a  hill,  to  prevent  him  from  seeing  the  disorders  which 
were  likely  to  arise.  He  was,  at  last,  on  the  25th  day 
of  the  month,  between  Douglas  and  Lanark,  permitted 
to  behold  their  evolutions.  "I  found  their  horse  did 
consist  of  four  hundreth  and  fortie,  and  the  foot  of  five 
hundreth  and  upwards.  .  .  .  The  horsemen  were 
armed  for  most  part  with  suord  and  pistoll  some  onlie 
with  suord.  The  foot  with  musket,  pike,  sith  (scythe), 
forke,  and  suord ;  and  some  with  suords  great  and  long." 
He  admired  much  the  proficiency  of  their  cavalry,  and 
marvelled  how  they  had  attained  to  it  in  so  short  a 
time.2 

At  Douglas,  which  they  had  just  left  on  the  morning 
of  this  great  wapinschaw,  they  were  charged — awful 
picture  of  depravity! — with  the  theft  of  a  silver  spoon 
and  a  nightgown.  Could  it  be  expected  that  while  the 
whole  country  swarmed  with  robbers  of  every  descrip- 
tion, such  a  rare  opportunity  for  plunder  should  be  lost 
by  rogues — that  among  a  thousand  men,  even  though 
fighting  for  religion,  there  should  not  be  one  Achan  in 
the  camp  ?  At  Lanark  a  declaration  was  drawn  up  and 
signed  by  the  chief  rebels.    In  it  occurs  the  following :  — 

"  The  just  sense  whereof" — the  sufferings  of  the  country  — ''  made 
us  choose,  rather  to  betake  ourselves  to  the  fields  for  self-defence,  than 

1  Turner,  p.  198.  2  ibid.  p.  167. 

387 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

to  stay  at  home^  burdened  daily  with  the  calamities  of  others,  and 
tortured  with  the  fears  of  our  own  approaching  misery."  1 

The  whole  body,  too,  swore  the  Covenant,  to  which 
ceremony  the  epitaph  at  the  head  of  this  chapter  seems 
to  refer. 

A  report  that  Dalzell  was  approaching  drove  them 
from  Lanark  to  Bathgate,  where,  on  the  evening  of 
Tuesday  the  26th,  the  wearied  army  stopped.  But  at 
twelve  o'clock  the  cry,  which  served  them  for  a  trum- 
pet, of  "Horse!  horse!"  and  "Mount  the  prisoner!" 
resounded  through  the  night-shrouded  town,  and  called 
the  peasants  from  their  well-earned  rest  to  toil  onwards 
in  their  march.  The  wind  howled  fiercely  over  the 
moorland;  a  close,  thick,  wetting  rain  descended. 
Chilled  to  the  bone,  worn  out  with  long  fatigue,  sink- 
ing to  the  knees  in  mire,  onward  they  marched  to  de- 
struction. One  by  one  the  weary  peasants  fell  ofif  from 
their  ranks  to  sleep,  and  die  in  the  rain-soaked  moor, 
or  to  seek  some  house  by  the  wayside  wherein  to  hide 
till  daybreak.  One  by  one  at  first,  then  in  gradually 
increasing  numbers,  till  at  last,  at  every  shelter  that 
was  seen,  whole  troops  left  the  waning  squadrons,  and 
rushed  to  hide  themselves  from  the  ferocity  of  the  tem- 
pest. To  right  and  left  nought  could  be  descried  but 
the  broad  expanse  of  the  moor,  and  the  figures  of  their 
fellow-rebels,  seen  dimly  through  the  murky  night, 
plodding  onwards  through  the  sinking  moss.  Those 
who  kept  together  —  a  miserable  few  —  often  halted  to 
rest  themselves,  and  to  allow  their  lagging  comrades  to 
overtake  them.  Then  onward  they  went  again,  still 
hoping  for  assistance,  reinforcement,  and  supplies;  on- 

1  Wodrow,  p.  29. 
388 


THE  MARCH   OF  THE  REBELS 

ward  again,  through  the  wind,  and  the  rain,  and  the 
darkness  —  onward  to  their  defeat  at  Pentland,  and 
their  scaffold  at  Edinburgh.  It  was  calculated  that  they 
lost  one-half  of  their  army  on  that  disastrous  night 
march. 

Next  night  they  reached  the  village  of  Colinton,  four 
miles  from  Edinburgh,  where  they  halted  for  the  last 
time.* 

1  Turner,  Wodrow,  and  Church  History,  by  James  Kirkton,  an  outed 
minister  oi  the  period. 


3S9 


IV.  RULLION  GREEN 

**From  Covenanters  with  uplifted  hands, 
Prom  remonstrators  with  associate  bands. 
Good  Lord,  deliver  us. " 

Royalist  Rhjrme,  Kirkton,  p.  137. 

Late  on  the  fourth  night  of  November,  exactly  twen- 
ty-four days  before  Rullion  Green,  Richard  and  George 
Chaplain,  merchants  in  Haddington,  beheld  four  men, 
clad  like  west  country  Whigamores,  standing  round 
some  object  on  the  ground.  It  was  at  the  two-mile 
cross,  and  within  that  distance  from  their  homes.  At 
last,  to  their  horror,  they  discovered  that  the  recumbent 
figure  was  a  livid  corpse  swathed  in  a  blood-stained 
winding-sheet.  ^  Many  thought  that  this  apparition 
was  a  portent  of  the  deaths  connected  with  the  Pentland 
Rising. 

On  the  morning  of  Thursday,  the  28th  of  November 
1666,  they  left  Colinton  and  marched  to  Rullion  Green. 
There  they  arrived  about  sunset.  The  position  was  a 
strong  one.  On  the  summit  of  a  bare  heathery  spur  of 
the  Pentlands  are  two  hillocks,  and  between  them  lies  a 
narrow  band  of  flat  marshy  ground.  On  the  highest  of 
the  two  mounds  —  that  nearest  the  Pentlands,  and  on 
the  left  hand  of  the  main  body  —  was  the  greater  part 
of  the  cavalry,  under  Major  Learmont;  on  the  other 
Barskob  and  the  Galloway  gentlemen ;  and  in  the  centre 
1  Kirkton,  p.  244. 
390 


RULLION   GREEN 

Colonel  Wallace  and  the  weak  half-armed  infantry. 
Their  position  was  further  strengthened  by  the  depth  of 
the  valley  below,  and  the  deep  chasm-like  course  of  the 
Rullion  Burn. 

The  sun,  going  down  behind  the  Pentlands,  cast 
golden  lights  and  blue  shadows  on  their  snow-clad 
summits,  slanted  obliquely  into  the  rich  plain  before 
them,  bathing  with  rosy  splendour  the  leafless,  snow- 
sprinkled  trees,  and  fading  gradually  into  shadow  in  the 
distance.  To  the  south,  too,  they  beheld  a  deep-shaded 
amphitheatre  of  heather  and  bracken;  the  course  of  the 
Esk,  near  Penicuik,  winding  about  at  the  foot  of  its 
gorge ;  the  broad,  brown  expanse  of  Maw  moss ;  and, 
fading  into  blue  indistinctness  in  the  south,  the  wild 
heath-clad  Peeblesshire  hills.  In  sooth,  that  scene  was 
fair,  and  many  a  yearning  glance  was  cast  over  that 
peaceful  evening  scene  from  the  spot  where  the  rebels 
awaited  their  defeat ;  and  when  the  fight  was  over,  many 
a  noble  fellow  lifted  his  head  from  the  blood-stained 
heather  to  strive  with  darkening  eyeballs  to  behold  that 
landscape,  over  which,  as  o'er  his  life  and  his  cause,  the 
shadows  of  night  and  of  gloom  were  falling  and  thick- 
ening. 

It  was  while  waiting  on  this  spot  that  the  fear-inspir- 
ing cry  was  raised,  ''The  enemy!  —  Here  comes  the 
enemy!" 

Unwilling  to  believe  their  own  doom  —  for  our  insur- 
gents still  hoped  for  success  in  some  negotiations  for 
peace  which  had  been  carried  on  at  Colinton  —  they 
called  out, — "They  are  some  other  of  our  own." 

''They  are  too  blacke"  (/.  e.,  too  numerous),  "fie! 
fie!  for  ground  to  draw  up  on,"  cried  Wallace,  fully  re- 

39^ 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

alising  the  want  of  space  for  his  men,  and  proving  that 
it  was  not  till  after  this  time  that  his  forces  were  finally 
arranged.  1 

First  of  all  the  battle  was  commenced  by  fifty  royalist 
horse  sent  obliquely  across  the  hill  to  attack  the  left  wing 
of  the  rebels.  An  equal  number  of  Learmont's  men  met 
them,  and,  after  a  struggle,  drove  them  back.  The  course 
of  the  Rullion  Burn  prevented  almost  all  pursuit,  and 
Wallace,  on  perceiving  it,  despatched  a  body  of  foot  to 
occupy  both  the  burn  and  some  ruined  sheep  walls  on 
the  farther  side. 

Dalzell  changed  his  position  and  drew  up  his  army  at 
the  foot  of  the  hill,  on  the  top  of  which  were  his  foes. 
He  then  despatched  a  mingled  body  of  infantry  and 
cavalry  to  attack  Wallace's  outpost,  but  they  also  were 
driven  back.  A  third  charge  produced  a  still  more  dis- 
astrous effect,  for  Dalzell  had  to  check  the  pursuit  of  his 
men  by  a  reinforcement. 

These  repeated  checks  bred  a  panic  in  the  lieutenant- 
general's  ranks,  for  several  of  his  men  flung  down  their 
arms.  Urged  by  such  fatal  symptoms,  and  by  the  ap- 
proaching night,  he  deployed  his  men  and  closed  in 
overwhelming  numbers  on  the  centre  and  right  flank  of 
the  insurgent  army.  In  the  increasing  twilight  the 
burning  matches  of  the  firelocks,  shimmering  on  barrel, 
halbert,  and  cuirass,  lent  to  the  approaching  army  a  pic- 
turesque effect,  like  a  huge  many-armed  giant  breathing 
flame  into  the  darkness. 

Placed  on  an  overhanging  hill,  Welch  and  Sempie 
cried  aloud,  **The  God  of  Jacob!  The  God  of  Jacob!" 
and  prayed  with  uplifted  hands  for  victory. ^ 
1  Kirkton .  2  Turner, 

392 


RULLION   GREEN 

But  still  the  royalist  troops  closed  in. 

Captain  John  Paton  was  observed  by  Dalzell,  who 
determined  to  capture  him  with  his  own  hands.  Ac- 
cordingly, he  charged  forward  presenting  his  pistols. 
Paton  fired,  but  the  balls  hopped  off  Dalzell's  buff  coat 
and  fell  into  his  boot.  With  the  superstition  peculiar  to 
his  age,  the  Nonconformist  concluded  that  his  adver- 
sary was  rendered  bullet-proof  by  enchantment,  and 
pulling  some  small  silver  coins  from  his  pocket,  charged 
his  pistol  therewith.  Dalzell,  seeing  this,  and  suppos- 
ing, it  is  likely,  that  Paton  was  putting  in  larger  balls, 
hid  behind  his  servant,  who  was  killed.^ 

Meantime  the  outposts  were  forced,  and  the  army  of 
Wallace  was  enveloped  in  the  embrace  of  a  hideous 
boa-constrictor  —  tightening,  closing,  crushing  every 
semblance  of  life  from  the  victim  enclosed  in  his  toils. 
The  flanking  parties  of  horse  were  forced  in  upon  the 
centre,  and  though,  as  even  Turner  grants,  they  fought 
with  desperation,  a  general  flight  was  the  result. 

But  when  they  fell  there  was  none  to  sing  their  coro- 
nach or  wail  the  death-wail  over  them.  Those  who 
sacrificed  themselves  for  the  peace,  the  liberty,  and  the 
religion  of  their  fellow-countrymen,  lay  bleaching  in  the 
field  of  death  for  long,  and  when  at  last  they  were  buried 
by  charity,  the  peasants  dug  up  their  bodies,  desecrated 
their  graves,  and  cast  them  once  more  upon  the  open 
heath  for  the  sorry  value  of  their  winding  sheets ! 
1  Kirkton,  p.  244. 


393 


THE  PENTLAND   RISING 

Inscription  on  stone  at  Ruliion  Green. 

Here 
and  near  to 
this  place  lyes  the 
reuerend  Mr.  John  Crookshanks 
and  Mr.  Andrew  M'Cormock 
ministers  of  the  Gospel,  and 
about  fifty  other  true  coven- 
anted Presbyterians  who  were 
killed  in  this  place  in  their  own 
innocent  self-defence  and  def- 
fence  of  the  Covenanted 
Work  of  Reformation  by 
Thomas  Dalzel  of  Bins 
Upon  28  November 
1666.  Rev.  12.  II.     Erected 
September  28.  1 738. 


Back  of  stone. 


A  cloud  of  witnesses  ly  here, 
Who  for  Christ's  interest  did  appear, 
For  to  restore  true  liberty, 
O'ertumed  then  by  tyrany; 
And  by  proud  prelats  who  did  rage 
Against  the  Lord's  own  heritage; 
They  sacrific'd  were  for  the  laws 
Of  Christ  their  King,  his  noble  cause, 
These  heros  fought  with  great  renown 
By  falling  got  the  martyrs  crown.  1 

1  Kirkton,  p.  246. 


394 


V.   A  RECORD  OF  BLOOD 

*'  They  cut  his  hands  ere  he  was  dead, 
A  ltd  after  that  struck  off  his  head. 
His  blood  under  the  altar  cries. 
For  vengeance  on  Christ's  enemies" 

Epitaph  on  Tomb  at  Longcross  of  Clermont  ^ 

Master  Andrew  Murray,  an  outed  minister,  residing 
in  the  Potterrow,  on  the  morning  after  the  defeat,  heard 
the  sounds  of  cheering  and  the  march  of  many  feet  be- 
neath his  window.  He  gazed  out.  With  colours  flying, 
and  with  music  sounding,  Dalzell  victorious  entered 
Edinburgh.  But  his  banners  were  dyed  in  blood,  and 
a  band  of  prisoners  were  marched  within  his  ranks. 
The  old  man  knew  it  all.  That  martial  and  triumphant 
strain  was  the  death-knell  of  his  friends  and  of  their 
cause,  the  rust-hued  spots  upon  the  flags  were  the  to- 
kens of  their  courage  and  their  death,  and  the  prisoners 
were  the  miserable  remnant  spared  from  death  in  battle 
to  die  upon  the  scaffold.  Poor  old  man !  he  had  out- 
lived all  joy.  Had  he  lived  longer  he  would  have  seen 
increasing  torment  and  increasing  woe ;  he  would  have 
seen  the  clouds,  then  but  gathering  in  mist,  cast  a  more 
than  midnight  darkness  o'er  his  native  hills,  and  have 
fallen  a  victim  to  those  bloody  persecutions  which,  later, 
sent  their  red  memorials  to  the  sea  by  many  a  burn.    By 

1  Cloud  of  Witnesses,  p.  389.     Edin.  1 765. 
2,95 


THE   PENTLAND   RISING 

a  merciful  Providence  all  this  was  spared  to  him  —  he 
fell  beneath  the  first  blow :  and  ere  four  days  had  passed 
since  Rullion  Green,  the  aged  minister  of  God  was 
gathered  to  his  fathers.^ 

When  Sharpe  first  heard  of  the  rebellion,  he  applied 
to  Sir  Alexander  Ramsay,  the  Provost,  for  soldiers  to 
guard  his  house.  Disliking  their  occupation,  the  sol- 
diers gave  him  an  ugly  time  of  it.  All  the  night  through 
they  kept  up  a  continuous  series  of  "alarms  and  incur- 
sions," cries  of  "Stand!"  "Give  fire!"  etc.,  which 
forced  the  prelate  to  flee  to  the  castle  in  the  morning, 
hoping  there  to  find  the  rest  which  was  denied  him  at 
home.2  Now,  however,  when  all  danger  to  himself 
was  past,  Sharpe  came  out  in  his  true  colours,  and  scant 
was  the  justice  likely  to  be  shown  to  the  foes  of  Scotch 
Episcopacy  when  the  Primate  was  by.  The  prisoners 
were  lodged  in  Haddo's  Hole,  a  part  of  St.  Giles's 
Cathedral,  where,  by  the  kindness  of  Bishop  Wishart, 
to  his  credit  be  it  spoken,  they  were  amply  supplied 
with  food.^ 

Some  people  urged,  in  the  council,  that  the  promise 
of  quarter  which  had  been  given  on  the  field  of  battle 
should  protect  the  lives  of  the  miserable  men.  Sir  John 
Gilmore,  the  greatest  lawyer,  gave  no  opinion  —  cer- 
tainly a  suggestive  circumstance, — but  Lord  Lee  declared 
that  this  would  not  interfere  with  their  legal  trial;  "so 
to  bloody  executions  they  went."*  To  the  number  of 
thirty  they  were  condemned  and  executed;  while  two 
of  them,  Hugh  M'Kail,  a  young  minister,  and  Nielson 
of  Corsack,  were  tortured  with  the  boots. 

1  Kirkton,  p.  247.  3  ibid.  p.  254. 

*  Ibid.  p.  247.  *  Ibid.  pp.  247,  248. 

396 


A   RECORD  OF  BLOOD 

The  goods  of  those  who  perished  were  confiscated, 
and  their  bodies  were  dismembered  and  distributed  to 
different  parts  of  the  country;  ''the  heads  of  Major 
M'Culioch  and  the  two  Gordons,"  it  was  resolved,  says 
Kirkton,  ''should  be  pitched  on  the  gate  of  Kirkcud- 
bright; the  two  Hamiltons  and  Strong's  head  should  be 
affixed  at  Hamilton,  and  Captain  Arnot's  sett  on  the 
Watter  Gate  at  Edinburgh.  The  armes  of  all  the  ten, 
because  they  hade  with  uplifted  hands  renewed  the 
Covenant  at  Lanark,  were  sent  to  the  people  of  that 
town  to  expiate  that  crime,  by  placing  these  armes  on 
the  top  of  the  prison."  Among  these  was  John  Niel- 
son,  the  Laird  of  Corsack,  who  saved  Turner's  life  at 
Dumfries;  in  return  for  which  service,  Sir  James  at- 
tempted, though  without  success,  to  get  the  poor  man 
reprieved.  One  of  the  condemned  died  of  his  wounds 
between  the  day  of  condemnation  and  the  day  of  ex- 
ecution. ' '  None  of  them, "  says  Kirkton,  ' '  would  save 
their  life  by  taking  the  declaration  and  renouncing  the 
Covenant,  though  it  was  offered  to  them.  .  .  .  But 
never  men  died  in  Scotland  so  much  lamented  by  the 
people,  not  only  spectators,  but  those  in  the  country. 
When  Knockbreck  and  his  brother  were  turned  over, 
they  clasped  each  other  in  their  armes,  and  so  endured 
the  pangs  of  death.  When  Humphray  Colquhoun  died, 
he  spoke  not  like  ane  ordinary  citizen,  but  like  a  heavenly 
minister,  relating  his  comfortable  Christian  experiences, 
and  called  for  his  Bible,  and  laid  it  on  his  wounded 
arm,  and  read  John  iii.  8,  and  spoke  upon  it  to  the  ad- 
miration of  all.  But  most  of  all,  when  Mr.  M'Kail  died, 
there  was  such  a  lamentation  as  was  never  known  in 
1  Kirkton,  p.  248. 
397 


THE  PENTLAND   RISING 

Scotland  before;  not  one  dry  cheek  upon  all  the  street, 
or  in  all  the  numberless  windows  in  the  mercate  place."  ^ 
The  following  passage  from  this  speech  speaks  for 
itself  and  its  author:  — 

"  Hereafter  I  will  not  talk  with  flesh  and  blood,  nor  think  on  the 
world's  consolations.  Farewell  to  all  my  friends,  whose  company 
hath  been  refreshful  to  me  in  my  pilgrimage.  I  have  done  with  the 
light  of  the  sun  and  the  moon ;  welcome  eternal  light,  eternal  life,  ever- 
lasting love,  everlasting  praise,  everlasting  glory.  Praise  to  Him  that 
sits  upon  the  throne,  and  to  the  Lamb  for  ever!  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my 
soul,  that  hath  pardoned  all  my  inquities  in  the  blood  of  His  Son,  and 
healed  all  my  diseases.  Bless  him,  oh!  all  ye  His  angels,  that  excel  in 
strength,  ye  ministers  that  do  His  pleasure.  Bless  the  Lord,  O  my 
soul!  "2 

After  having  ascended  the  gallows-ladder  he  again 
broke  forth  in  the  following  words  of  touching  elo- 
quence: 

"  And  now  I  leave  oflTto  speak  any  more  to  creatures,  and  begin  my 
intercourse  with  God,  which  shall  never  be  broken  off.  Farewell  father 
and  mother,  friends  and  relations!  Farewell  the  world  and  all  de- 
lights !  Farewell  meat  and  drink  !  Farewell  sun,  moon,  and  stars  ! 
Welcome  God  and  Father  !  Welcome  sweet  Jesus  Christ,  the  Mediator 
of  the  new  covenant !  Welcome  blessed  Spirit  of  grace,  and  God  of 
all  consolation  !  Welcome  glory  !  Welcome  eternal  life  !  Welcome 
Death!" 

At  Glasgow  too,  where  some  were  executed,  they 
caused  the  soldiers  to  beat  the  drums  and  blow  the 
trumpets  on  their  closing  ears.  Hideous  refinement  of 
revenge!  Even  the  last  words  which  drop  from  the 
lips  of  a  dying  man  —  words  surely  the  most  sincere 

iKirkton,  p.  249.  2Naphtali,  Glasg.  1721,  p.  205. 

'Wodrow,  p.  59. 

398 


A   RECORD   OF   BLOOD 

and  the  most  unbiassed  which  mortal  mouth  can  utter 
—  even  these  were  looked  upon  as  poisoned  and  as 
poisonous.  "Drown  their  last  accents,"  was  the  cry, 
"lest  they  should  lead  the  crowd  to  take  their  part,  or 
at  the  least  to  mourn  their  doom!"i  But,  after  all, 
perhaps  it  was  more  merciful  than  one  would  think  — 
unintentionally  so,  of  course;  perhaps  the  storm  of  harsh 
and  fiercely  jubilant  noises,  the  clanging  of  trumpets, 
the  rattling  of  drums,  and  the  hootings  and  jeerings  of 
an  unfeeling  mob,  which  were  the  last  they  heard  on 
earth,  might,  when  the  mortal  fight  was  over,  when 
the  river  of  death  was  passed,  add  tenfold  sweetness  to 
the  hymning  of  the  angels,  tenfold  peacefulness  to  the 
shores  which  they  had  reached. 

Not  content  with  the  cruelty  of  these  executions,  some 
even  of  the  peasantry,  though  these  were  confined  to 
the  shire  of  Mid-Lothian,  pursued,  captured,  plundered, 
and  murdered  the  miserable  fugitives  who  fell  in  their 
way.  One  strange  story  have  we  of  these  times  of 
blood  and  persecution  :  Kirkton,  the  historian,  and  pop- 
ular tradition  tell  us  alike,  of  a  flame  which  often  would 
arise  from  the  grave,  in  a  moss  near  Carnwath,  of  some 
of  those  poor  rebels;  of  how  it  crept  along  the  ground; 
of  how  it  covered  the  house  of  their  murderer;  and  of 
how  it  scared  him  with  its  lurid  glare. 

Hear  Daniel  Defoe :  2 

"  If  the  poor  people  were  by  these  insupportable  violences  made  des- 
perate, and  driven  to  all  the  extremities  of  a  wild  despair,  who  can  justly 
reflect  on  them  when  they  read  in  the  word  of  God  *  That  oppression 
makes  a  wise  man  mad  ? '  And  therefore  were  there  no  other  original 
of  the  insurrection  known  by  the  name  of  the  Rising  of  Pentland,  it 
1  Kirkton,  p.  246.  2  Defoe's  Hist,  of  the  Church. 

399 


THE  PENTLAND  RISING 

was  nothing  but  what  the  intolerable  oppressions  of  those  times  might 
have  justified  to  all  the  world,  nature  having  dictated  to  all  people  a 
right  of  defence  when  illegally  and  arbitrarily  attacked  in  a  manner  not 
justifiable  either  by  the  laws  of  nature,  the  laws  of  God,  or  the  laws  of 
the  country." 

Bear  this  remonstrance  of  Defoe's  in  mind,  and  thougii 
it  is  the  fashion  of  the  day  to  jeer  and  to  mock,  to  exe- 
crate and  to  contemn  the  noble  band  of  Covenanters, 
though  the  bitter  laugh  at  their  old  world  religious 
views,  the  curl  of  the  lip  at  their  merits,  and  the  chill- 
ing silence  on  their  bravery  and  their  determination,  are 
but  too  rife  through  all  society ;  be  charitable  to  what 
was  evil,  and  honest  to  what  was  good  about  the  Pent- 
land  insurgents,  who  fought  for  life  and  liberty,  for 
country  and  religion,  on  the  28th  of  November  1666, 
now  just  two  hundred  years  ago. 

Edinburgh,  28th  Nov.  1866. 


400 


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